


whatever you make me (wherever you are)

by squigly



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - (500) Days of Summer Fusion, Alternate Universe - Office, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Breaking Up & Making Up, First Dates, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, different ending from movie oops, kinda slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 23:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squigly/pseuds/squigly
Summary: Dream had always been a devout believer in the idea of “true love.” The evidence did not support him.**Dream is a hopeless romantic, and George doesn't believe in love. (Or: the 500 days of summer au that nobody asked for.)
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 140





	whatever you make me (wherever you are)

**Author's Note:**

> ohhhh boy. oh boy. im sorry for being dead for 2 months all of my midterms were papers. blame my profs for making me not update anything for so long dont blame me ok
> 
> basically this was an excuse for me to get to write along with a script i really enjoy instead of thinking of an original plot but even so- a lot of details r changed! the ending is completely different! so if u have seen 500 days dont be confused, i def changed a lot of stuff :3 
> 
> (also disclaimer- i realize 500days is not a romantic movie and this is not me trying to say tom and summer should have ended up together omg. i just like the nonchronological storytelling and i'm a sap so i did a different ending. kill me)
> 
> not beta read + title is from shes the prettiest girl at the party by frank iero (aewomse song btw)
> 
> plz dont show to ccs! i hope you enjoy! 
> 
> ps if you havent seen 500 days go watch it i like it

**(290)**

“I’ve gotta say,” Karl says, from where he’s trembling in a corner to escape the plates Dream is crushing under his heel, “This seems like a teensy bit of an exaggeration.” 

Dream doesn’t answer. He’s not very careful about it; he grabs his whiskey tumbler from the coffee table and flings it against the ground, and when it doesn’t shatter, he kicks it with the toe of his shoe until it collides with the wall. 

“Fucking piece of shit tempered fucking glass,” he says, even though he’s kind of crying, and kicks it again, thinking, _I hope he falls in love with some girl and they get married and have kids and then she dies after a long debiliating battle with some rare fucking illness, fuck him, I don’t fucking need him_ , and then, “It’s not a fucking exaggeration, and you’re a fucking idiot for even—for fucking—who the hell is that?” 

“The cops, probably,” Karl says, kind of tiredly. He’s been here since earlier, from before Dream found the plates and the sweatshirt George left at his apartment the last time he slept over. It smells like Dream’s laundry detergent now, not George’s skin, which is fucked up in an entirely new way. 

“You better be kidding,” Dream says. “And even if you are it’s not fucking funny.” 

“Obviously I’m kidding,” Karl says, standing up to answer it. It’s not hard. Dream has a one-bedroom. The renter had told him it was _good for two people, though, really_ , if he’d ever need _someone else_ to move in, and he’d thought—for a naive while—that that was something completely attainable to him. And then of course reality reminded him that he’s Dream and he’s made for breaking plates and being alone forever. “It’s just Sapnap. Chill.” 

“Tell him to leave,” Dream says, and then sees that Sapnap is walking inside anyway, pulling the hood of his jacket down and toeing his shoes off into the shoe closet. “ _Leave_!” 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sapnap asks, and drops his jacket into Karl’s arms. Karl doesn’t look amused. “Put the plate down—Jesus, _no_ ! Put the plate _down_ , Dream!”

Dream hovers the plate he’d been aiming at Sapnap hesitantly. “I wasn’t going to throw it at _you_ ,” he clarifies, even though he totally was. “Who’s being dramatic now?”

“Oh, boo fucking hoo, _you’re_ still the one being a little bitch,” Sapnap says, and steps over the glass to grab Dream by the shoulders and shake him, slightly, making the plate drop between their feet. “Get! Ahold! Of! Yourself!” He cranes his neck, pushing Dream in the center of the chest to force him to drop back onto the couch. “Karl, does he have wine anywhere here?”

“He doesn’t need _wine_ ,” Karl says, and steps out of Dream’s kitchen with a bottle of vodka he has no memory of purchasing, which was probably the point. Dream squints to read the label, but Karl is too busy pouring it into one of two glasses that have been left unbroken. He shoves the glass into Dream’s hand. “Here.”

“What’s—” Sapnap says, but Dream is already gulping down most of it. 

“More,” Dream says, voice hoarse from where it burns going down. It’s kind of nice. It feels like he’s swallowing glass, which makes him not only surrounded by broken shit, but _full_ of broken shit. Sapnap pours him more.

“Okay,” he says coaxingly, evidently watching Dream relax his proverbial rattlesnake tail. “Just—tell us what happened. Start from the beginning.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Dream says. He leans back into the couch. “It was all going so _well_. We—we spent the whole day together. We went shopping—” George rolling blueberries and grapes between his fingers, smiling as he watched Dream pop them between his lips in the empty aisles of the Whole Foods, “—Got coffee—” George emptying sugar packets into his drink for him, thumb stroking over the back of his hand, “—Bought music. I thought it was a great day.” 

“Okay,” Karl says. “So what happened?”

( _“No, just one is fine,” Dream had said, looking back at George for confirmation. “Unless you want one too?”_

_“No, it’s okay,” George said. “I’ll just try some of yours if it looks good. If that’s okay?”_

_“Of course it’s okay,” Dream said, when the waitress walked off. He reached for his hand over the table, moved to lock their fingers together again, but George’s hand was still, solid where it had once been moving. “The food’s so good here. I could come here all the time.”_

_“I think we should stop seeing each other,” George said._ )

“I don’t know,” Dream says, instead. “It was like—it was like something switched. I don’t know. He just changed his mind. Told me we should—we should stop, like, hanging out. Or whatever we were doing.”

Sapnap furrows his eyebrows. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Dream says.

“Did he say why?” Sapnap asks. 

( _“This—thing, we’re doing,” George had told him. “Don’t you think it’s too much?”_

_“Too much?” Dream said._

_“Yeah,” George said. “Like—it’s—Dream, I told you what I’m like.”_

_“I know what you’re like,” Dream said. “You think I don’t know what you’re like? Of course I know what you’re like.”_ )

“No,” Dream says, aloud.

( _“This can’t come as a total surprise,” George had said. He ran a nail over a groove in the wooden table. “I mean, you’re not—you don’t realize the type of person you are, sometimes. And—right now—I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m right for you.”_

_“I think you’re fine for me,” Dream said._

_“I don’t know,” George said again, sounding unsure. “I don’t want to change you. I don’t want to be with you until you hate me and one of us does some fucked up shit in the end. Like Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.”_

_“Oh, come on,” Dream said. “I know we’ve—been talking for a while now, sure, but I’m not going to stab you to death if you change your mind.” There’s a beat, where George just raises an eyebrow at him. “Including right now. I’m not going to stab you right now. I hardly think I’m Courtney Love.”_

_“No,” George says, after a while. “No, Dream._ I’m _Courtney.”_ )

“Oh, God,” Karl says. 

Sapnap doesn’t say anything. When Dream looks down again, he’s pouring more vodka into his cup, so he just sighs back into it and flings it down the hatch, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He wants to curl up on the couch and cry into his hands and his broken plates forever, but Sapnap is saying something so he can’t retreat into his daydream land where he’s completely alone and completely unharmed.

“You can’t take this shit to heart, bro,” Sapnap says. “Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out, you know? You’ll get over it. You always get over it.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Dream says.

“Or that,” Karl says, when Dream just goes back to chugging his glass down with pained gulps. “Come on, Dream. You’re a really good guy. You’re funny. Nice apartment. Have a good job.”

“And you’re a hot piece of ass,” Sapnap says. Karl sends him a look like it’s something he isn’t meant to say, but it does do a slightly better job of raising Dream’s mood until it crashes at his feet again like an exploding water balloon. “What? It’s what I would wanna hear.”

“Listen,” Karl says, turning to Dream and ignoring Sapnap entirely, “I’m serious when I tell you this, man, I’m not just saying it because I want you to feel better, even though I totally do. Okay? So listen.”

“I’m listening,” Dream says, uneasily.

“Forget about him,” Karl says. He must see the way Dream slams his head over the back of the couch, groaning heavily to drown out his voice. “ _Dream_ ! I’m fucking serious! Just—I don’t care what you have to do—screw someone else or drink your pain away or move back to Florida and get away from everything, I don’t _care_. Just forget about him. Because—and listen really, really fucking closely here: you—always—do—this. What makes him any different?” 

Dream digests this.

“Okay,” he says, after a moment. Karl’s eyes brighten significantly.

“Really?” Karl says. “You’ll actually try?”

“Never,” Dream says, drinks the final gulp of his vodka, and flings it across the room until it shatters against the wall in an arc of white glass.

* * *

**(1)**

“I know what you’re thinking,” Karl is saying. He’s holding a laser pointer he’s not using, because he’s using his other hand to click rapidly at the old laptop he has hooked up to the monitor. “ _Isn’t one drunken holiday enough for our people?_ Well, I’m here to tell you that—no. It’s not. The truth of the matter is that Christmas is _dead_ , baby. It’s dead, rotting, buried in the ground, because you’ll remember the memories of your Christmases forever—it’s not the empty slate of the year like America’s favorite holiday of bad decisions and sexual regrets. That’s right. _New Year’s Eve_ .” Dream leans his hand against his palm, eyes burning with exhaustion. “And that’s why I give you… December 30th. New Year’s... _Yesterday_.” 

He raises up the first copy of his design, wherein he’s badly photoshopped himself next to Amanda Seyfried in _Jennifer’s Body_. They’re both drinking very heavily. The other side of the card shows him next to a Victoria’s Secret Angel, also drinking very heavily. “See?”

Karl stops talking to a smattering of applause, mostly from the older women in the office who don’t seem completely sure of where they are. Not that Dream is entirely sentient. He snatches a look over at Phil; to his surprise, his eyebrows are furrowed and he’s stroking his chin in thought. 

“I like it,” he says, with finality, surprising them all. “It has potential. If we sell it at the same time as the _Keep Christ in Christmas_ cards we could appeal to both audiences without alienating either. Could you get started on writing up some prototypes, Clay?” 

Before he can respond, Dream’s eyes catch on the new person walking into the conference room. A younger guy with dark hair—Phil’s new assistant. 

“Call for you on line three, Mr. Watson,” the assistant says quietly, and turns to look out at them. He clasps his hands tightly together in front of his dress shirt. His eyes turn down like the corners of his lips and they never meet Dream’s, but Dream’s focus is caught on him immediately. _Fish, meet hook_. 

“Oh, thank you,” Phil says. “I’ll get it in a second. Oh—everyone, this is George. My new assistant. He just moved from—“ 

“England,” George says.

“England,” Phil repeats, wheeling around his chair again and tugging at the knot of his tie. “Great. Hopefully you’ll all make him feel welcome. Now, as I was saying—“ 

George smiles at them all, a final time, and turns around, heading back into the bullpen. He doesn’t look at Dream, not once. Dream never stops looking at him except for when he leaves. 

He tries to think about him when he turns back to the meeting, remember how he looked standing with a tiny smile on his face, because maybe that’ll get him through the rest of the day, but he can’t even focus on _that_ , because all his brain is thinking is _holy shit. Holy fucking shit_. 

* * *

**(3)**

Dream’s staring at the spot between George’s desk and the wall. There’s a woman idling to ask him a question, but he’s busy on the phone, so he raises a hand in her direction to tell her it’ll be a moment, and she smiles anyway, because he’s George and people probably do whatever he tells them to do. Dream knows he would. 

“Dude,” Karl says. “Stop staring.” 

“I’m not staring,” Dream says, watching the way George worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. “He’s just—I mean—no fucking way. You know?” 

“He’s literally just answering emails,” Karl says. Dream doesn’t say anything, too focused on watching him type something out. “...I’m sure he’s really good at answering emails.” 

Dream doesn’t know how he’d explain himself, because it’s just a feeling—something so genuine it has to be primal, because there’s no other explanation for it. Dream has to have been born looking for him or something. He’s always believed in predestination. Or maybe he was predestined to believe in predestination just for this circumstance. “Nah, man. You don’t get it. Have you heard anything about him?” 

“Not that much,” Karl says. “Ella tried to hit on him in the copy room and he was apparently not having it.” 

“Okay, well, you never know,” Dream says. “Maybe he doesn’t like women. It’s always a possibility that he doesn’t like women.”

“I guess,” Karl says.

“And if he doesn’t, he’s not annoying about it, I bet,” Dream adds. “Like, he wouldn’t—I don’t know, it’s not like I’ll ever talk to him, but I’m sure if I did, he’d be able to have, like, an actual _conversation_ with me. You know?” 

“Someone’s projecting,” Karl says under his breath, still staring at his computer screen. Dream kicks his leg under their conjoined desk. “ _Ow_! Look, man, I don’t know. I’ve just heard he’s a dick.” 

That’s not fucking fair. Not at all. “Maybe he was having a bad day,” Dream says, but the disappointment is already setting in and it’s starting to make sense. _It can make sense and still not be fair_ , he tries to rationalize. 

“Or maybe he’s an asshole with a giant ego,” Karl offers, and Dream groans, burying his face in his hands so he doesn’t have to look at George anymore. It doesn’t last long. He pulls himself back up and watches him tap a file of papers against his desk, pursing his lips at the question the woman asks him. He runs his fingers through his hair, and it spills over the milk-white of his hands like black coffee. 

“Fuck,” Dream says. He sits back in his seat. “Go fucking figure. He’s so pretty. Something had to be off. Why is it always the pretty ones who think they own the place?”

“It’s environmental,” Karl says, as an explanation. “Like, nobody tells them they’re not the shit, so they just walk around thinking they’re the shit.”

“God, whatever,” Dream says. He still hasn’t stopped looking—he’s not that strong of a person—so he has to physically tear his eyes away. “I haven’t even spoken to him yet, and I already can’t stand him.” 

“Amen,” Karl says. 

** 

Dream’s staring at his music player when he climbs onto the elevator later in the day. His go-to is usually some happy-go-lucky Ramones single that’ll make him excited enough to—write a greeting card, apparently. Or actively not think about killing himself. He picks _There Is A Light That Never Goes Out_ to try and work towards that goal. 

He rides in silence for a good few minutes ( _there is a double decker bus, crashes into us_ ) and waits for his floor, but it stops on the third before the ninth. George steps inside. His eyes are relaxed—tired. 

Dream’s brain immediately goes on the defense, reminding him of what Karl said, or what Ella the Marketing Consultant (apparently) said, of what he _knows_ —that pretty boys are unattainable like tax cuts and good-fitting dress shoes and good Johnny Rotten solo singles—but then George says something. 

Dream just smiles. Nods. 

“Hey,” he says. 

_DO NOT ENGAGE,_ his brain says. 

George says something else. 

It’s a matter of politeness to take his headphones off after that. “Sorry?” 

“The Smiths,” George says. “I love The Smiths.” 

Dream’s brain kind of fries after that, and then he’s just staring at George, and George is staring at him, blinking haphazardously as he waits for a response—for anything, fucking _anything_ , but Dream can’t think of anything because his mouth just feels full of sand, so he says, “You…” and George says, “You have—you have, um, good taste in music,” and Dream says, “You—you like The Smiths?” 

“ _To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die_ ,” he says, singing a little. He looks at Dream again. “I love ‘em.” 

The elevator dings, and he walks outside. The doors close and Dream misses his floor.

“Oh my God,” he says.

* * *

**(8)**

It’s Ella the Marketing Consultant’s birthday, so Phil lets them sing her a harrowed rendition of the birthday song over a shitty coffee cake that Dream looks at in perpetual disgust. He moves to find the carbonated apple juice they’re using as champagne, but then he sees George by the cake, so he goes to cut himself a slice.

“Hey,” he says, and George smiles at him and lets go of the pastry knife. It clatters against the metal of the serving tray. 

“Hi,” he says, and when Dream moves to grab ahold of the handle it’s warm where George’s hand had touched it. He has to bite the inside of his cheek really tightly to clear his head after that. “It’s—Clay, right?” 

“That’s just—yeah,” Dream says, debating whether this is a conversation he wants to have at all. “It’s mostly Phil that calls me that, really. It’s Dream.” 

“Oh,” George says, but the look on his face hasn’t melted and he still looks so painlessly happy. It’s almost addictive. It makes Dream want to be near him. “Why?”

“Why?” Dream repeats. George doesn’t nod; he just tilts his head. “Oh. I don’t know. It’s kind of a long story.” 

“I like long stories,” George says. 

_I should not be liking talking to you,_ Dream wants to tell him, which is probably the most petty and passive-aggressive thing he could tell him, especially if he doesn’t know what kind of a reputation he has already—if a few words from Karl equate to having a reputation.

“Karl got me this job, and I’ve known him for a while,” Dream says. It’s more like he’s known _Sapnap_ for a while, who also knew Karl for a while, and they’ve both known him by different names for most of that while. “So… yeah.”

“Doesn’t seem like that long of a story,” George says, but he’s grinning a little bit. 

Dream just shrugs. “Usually people ask more questions. How do you like it here?”

George doesn’t respond for a second, slicing a piece of his cake with the edge of his fork. “The city or the company?” He asks, popping the bite into his mouth as he leads Dream away from the table. 

“Both, I guess,” Dream says. 

George shrugs, turning to rest an elbow over the bannister overlooking the bullpen. The upper level is reserved for senior employees and Phil’s endlessly rotating slew of assistants, but he’d been gratuitous enough to reserve them a spot for Ella’s birthday. “The city’s nice. The company’s… nice.”

Dream snorts, for a second, and George looks kind of pleased with himself. “How long have you been working here?” He asks.

“Oh,” Dream says. He pushes away from the bannister and leads George towards the staircase, as they amble slowly through the quiet, uncharacteristically calm office. He figures it’s something he’ll have to take advantage of. “Like—I dunno. Two years? Three years? Joined when I was eighteen, so.” 

“Oh, wow,” George says, evidently trying his hardest to seem supportive. “That’s cool. Have you always wanted to—write… greeting cards?”

“Don’t even wanna do it now,” Dream says, pausing at his open desk space to kick at the rolling wheels of his chair. George kicks it, too, and their eyes meet when he raises his head.

“So what did you want to do?” He asks. 

Dream shrugs. “I went to school to write actual books. I think.”

“You think?” George asks.

“I mean—you know. Shit happens. I couldn’t really afford it, for one, and then I figured I wasn’t going to do anything with it and I didn’t really _want_ to go to school again so—” and he realizes, with a start, how easy it is for George to get him talking. “Yeah. Y’know.”

“Are you good at it?” George asks.

Dream sighs, turning over to his corkboard. He has a picture of his parents and sister pinned up, along with a copy of the first time he got an offer for his manuscript. He points at a framed greeting card he has pinned up next to them— _pride and joy_ , he thinks bitterly—where he’d added a picture of Patches on her back with a superimposed thought bubble reading _I know things might be fishy, but you better cheer up right meow_!

“It’s a big seller,” he tells George. 

George looks at it for a moment, cheeks puffed out like he’s trying not to laugh. Dream buries his face into his bubbly apple juice. “You can laugh.”

“I’m not—it’s—it’s a good greeting card,” George says, voice tight and contained. His face breaks out into a smile, and Dream laughs, despite himself. One of his office-mates across from Karl’s desk sends him an annoyed look. He promptly shuts up. “I just hope nobody gives it to my family when I die.” 

“Phil thought it was cheeky or something,” Dream says. “I don’t know.”

“I’m sure it is,” George says. “That’s not really what I meant, though. I meant—are you any good as a, like, _non-_ greeting card writer?” 

“Oh,” Dream says. He wants to say yes. In a different reality, he’d have said yes, and maybe he would’ve told George about the book and about how he was going to publish it until everything kind of fell apart, but he can’t tell him that, so he doesn’t. “I’m okay. There’s better ones out there.”

“So?” George says. “Do you have some urge to be the next Hemingway or something?” 

“No, but—” Dream says, and George raises his eyebrows at him like he’s daring him to disagree, so he just grits his teeth and shrugs, slightly, inclining his head in accommodation. “I don’t know. I guess you’re right.” 

“Cooler than computer science, anyway,” George says. “At least I was a hooker. Had that going for me.” 

Dream chokes on his drink. 

“On the rugby team,” George says dryly.

Dream opens his mouth to say something else but he can’t think of anything. The silence grows exponentially. 

“I should get back,” George says, a moment later, when it becomes too unbearable for either of them to witness.

“Oh, okay,” Dream says. “Um, I’ll see you around.” 

George turns away and George watches him make his way back to the upper level at the end of the hallway, sliding into place between people who are much better at small talk than Dream is. 

He sits back down into his seat with a thump and looks over at the manuscript offer, paper dull in comparison to the fresh copy of his greeting card. It’s rare that he thinks about ripping the greeting card off his cork board instead of the manuscript, but—things change. 

* * *

**(22)**

“It’s off,” Dream says. 

“What’s off?” Sapnap asks, popping a handful of potato chips into his mouth. Karl doesn’t even answer, because he probably knows where the conversation is going, so he just makes a loud humming noise and drops his knee into Sapnap’s lap as he fiddles with his controller. 

“Me and George,” Dream tells them.

“Was it ever on?” Sapnap asks.

“No, but it could’ve been,” Dream says. “In a world where good things happen to me.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s not really where we live,” Karl says. “What happened?”

“Oh, God,” Dream says. “I don’t even want to talk about it. It’s—okay. Are you ready for this?”

Sapnap and Karl look at him expectantly.

“We were on the elevator,” Dream says. “He walked on. I figured I’d make some conversation, you know—get to know each other a little better. Since it’s pretty rare we’re heading up to the same floor in the morning. Right? Are you following?”

“Get to the point, moron,” Sapnap says. 

“Right,” Dream says. “Well, I ask—you know— _how was your weekend_ ? And he says—and I fucking quote— _it was good_.” 

They stare at him, their Grand Theft Auto game continuing on unpaused in the background. 

“You believe that shit?” Dream asks.

“I think I missed something,” Karl says. 

“It was _gooood_ ,” Dream repeats, dragging out the vowels. “He didn’t say _it_ was good. He said it was _good_. He basically just threw it in my fucking face that he spent his weekend having orgies and smoking PCP with strangers way fucking hotter than me.” He punctuates his words with a kick at the coffee table. “Piece of shit. I never should’ve bothered.” 

“What the fuck are you _saying_?” Karl says to him, finally. It’s loud enough to shock Dream out of his wits, but Sapnap seems to agree more than anything. 

“Dude, you’re losing it,” Sapnap says, decidedly. He looks back to the screen and shoots at Karl’s player character, running around to collect the money he drops. Karl’s still looking at Dream, expression puzzled. 

“He’s just not into me,” Dream says, slowly sinking against the couch. Patches pats her way into the living room and then hops onto the arm of the couch, settling in where he can scratch the back of her head. “I just need to accept it, at this point. If he’s into dudes, he’s not into me, and if he’s… _not_ into dudes, he’s _double_ not into me.” He means it as a way of forcing himself to accept his fate, but it just makes him feel worse. 

“Dream,” Sapnap says. “You’re fucking insane. You’re genuinely fucking insane. How long have we known each other?”

“What?” Dream asks.

“How long have we fucking known each other?” Sapnap repeats persistently. His eyes are still glued to the screen, but he seems fully in tune with the conversation, so Karl says, “Dude, how do you do that,” and Sapnap says, “Shut up. Answer, Dream.”

“Um, I don’t know,” Dream says. It’d be easier to tell him how long they _haven’t_ known each other. “Since we met online. And then I guess when I moved here.” 

“Right,” Sapnap says. “So I’ve been there for a lot of your life—Jesus Karl get out of the car and _let me drive_ —thank you. Anyways—I know you pretty well, unfortunately, so I can tell you—with complete and total fucking certainty—that this is not the first time this has happened.”

“But—” Dream says, and Sapnap drops his controller into his lap and says, “Ah ah ah! No buts. No fucking buts. Remember Talia Bateman?” 

(Dream had been in fourth grade. He’d just watched _Natural Born Killers_ and severely misinterpreted the message to the point of falling wildly in love with Mallory Knox, which probably explained why he liked letting women hurt him emotionally. Talia Bateman was taller than him and had a platinum blonde mullet just like Mallory Knox’s, so he’d written her a note asking her if she wanted to be his girlfriend, and she’d added a box of her own to tick off _no_. Technically his earliest heartbreak.)

“That didn’t count,” Dream says. 

“Polly Quintano,” Karl says, and Dream cranes his neck to look over at him. “What? You’ve told me the story too.” 

(Exhibit B: Polly Quintano. She was a sophomore when he was a freshman and she’d broken up with him in the mall food court. “I just don’t super like you that much anymore, I don’t think,” she’d said, and he’d said, “What?” Because it was the mall food court, and it was fucking loud, and she’d said, “I—never mind. I think I’m gonna go,” and he’d said, “Oh, okay. I’ll text you,” and she’d said, “Actually, no. Like, don’t.”)

“Polly Quintano was a bitch,” Dream says. 

“Theo,” Karl says, and snaps his fingers. “Theo _something_. O’Carroll, maybe?”

“It was something Irish,” Sapnap says. 

(That one hurt the most. They’d been together for a while in senior year and Dream had just about convinced him that they could take a gap year before he went off to college, drive across the East Coast like the couple from the movie—which was kind of fucked up, that he still thought Mallory and Mickey Knox were the height of romance, but whatever—but then Theo’s fucking _goals and ambitions_ had gotten in the way and they’d broken up and he’d gone to Dartmouth.)

“O’Connell?” Sapnap says.

“ _O’Connor_ ,” Dream snaps at them. “Yes, I remember, why the fuck wouldn’t I remember? What’s your point?”

“My point _is_ , there’s going to be another one after—George, or whatever his name is,” Sapnap says. “And then when you get over the _next_ person, there’ll be another person, and then another person, and then another. You’re in a vicious cycle.”

“Self fulfilling prophecy,” Karl agrees. Dream pets Patches’ back, and she looks back at him as if agreeing with them both. He could yell at all three of them.

“Great, thanks, Sapnap,” Dream says. “That’s definitely what I want to hear when I’m in a cold and vulnerable place. Thank you for being a great friend.”

“No need to get pissy,” Sapnap says distractedly. “I don’t want to see the way you treat people you _don’t_ want to sleep with. Dramatic bitch.” 

“No, but—” Dream says, and drops his face into his hands, faking a sob into his palms. “You don’t _get_ it. He likes The Smiths.”

“Oh, he likes _The Smiths_ ,” Karl says, putting on a nasally inflection under his breath. Dream slams their shoulders together. 

“And you should see his desk,” Dream continues, ignoring the way Karl and Sapnap are both containing their laughter. “He had these really cool Magritte prints, and he told me he had more at home. Can you believe that? We talked about—”

“You’re a fucking creep,” Sapnap says. “I can assure you he does _not_ think about you this much.”

Dream picks at his nails. “I know _that_.” 

“So drop it,” Sapnap says. 

“I am,” Dream says. Sapnap remains unconvinced. “I’m serious. It’s over. No more hints, no more… talking about music, no more—anything.” He leans back again, looking up at the ceiling for answers. “I’m done with him.” 

* * *

**(26)**

Dream’s been sharing a cubicle with Karl for a long time, and he’s been his perpetual drawing board for even longer than that, so it shouldn’t surprise him when Karl leaves the copy room and grabs the back of his chair to drop a bundle of papers onto his desk. 

“Stop staring,” Karl says, sliding into his seat and effortlessly hiding George’s entire body with his head. Dream snaps his head down guiltily. 

“I wasn’t staring,” he says. He looks down at the papers. “What’s this?” 

“Phil has me on holidays,” Karl says glumly. “I just typed those out. Read them.” 

Dream picks one up. “ _Wishing you a happy and safe holiday. Happy Hanukkah to you and your loved ones._ ” 

“Well?” Karl asked. 

“Looks fine to me,” Dream says. 

“Obviously it looks fine,” Karl says. “But I need you to tell me the truth. Hard and straight. Is it too preppy? Is it sexy enough? Would you be happy if someone gave it to you?” 

“Um,” Dream says, bewildered. “Yeah. Sure. If I was Jewish.” 

Karl pushes his feet up against the edge of Dream’s seat. “You’re obviously distracted, so I’ll let it slide,” he says. “Listen. I have an offer to make you that can’t refuse.”

“No,” Dream mutters, pushing the papers off his desk so he can go back to focusing on his monitor. 

“This Friday,” Karl says, plowing past him. “Ten bucks all you can karaoke at The Well.” 

“No way,” Dream says. “No. They won’t let you back in there after last time.” 

“I wasn’t _that_ bad,” Karl says. 

“No, not at all,” Dream says. “You just threw up on the stage, tried to fight the bartender, and then threatened to burn the place down before passing out on the sidewalk. Quiet night for you.” 

“You saved my life that night,” Karl says fondly. 

Dream rolls his eyes. “We’re not going back there.”

“It won’t be like that this time,” Karl says, which is something Dream has heard time and time again, so he doesn’t give it much thought. “It’s a work thing. The whole office is going.” 

“I really can’t,” Dream says. “Even if I wanted to. I have stuff I gotta do.” 

“You’re not listening to me,” Karl says, leaning over his desk so that his face gets closer to Dream’s over the divider between their desks. “The _whole_ office is going.” 

Dream’s eyes dart to his shoulder at where George is sitting at his desk, and then back to his face. Karl smirks at him. 

* * *

**(27)**

Dream’s very familiar with The Well, so when he walks inside and sees it overrun with his coworkers, it’s only slightly jarring. Karl’s already at the microphone; he’s singing _Every Rose Has Its Thorn_ by Poison without a hint of hesitation or self-doubt. 

He waves. Karl barely notices. Dream looks around and catches sight of a booth full of his coworkers, where George is sitting on the edge, leaning his chin into his hand. Their eyes meet. 

“Hey,” he says, when he walks up to speak over the pounding bass and Karl’s screeching rendition of Bret Michaels.

“Oh,” George says, looking up at him. His fingers are wet from the condensation on his beer bottle. “Hi! They said you weren’t coming.”

“You asked if I was coming?” Dream asks, and George blinks at him. “I mean—I—um—I had plans, but. They got. Canceled.” 

There’s another beat where George thumbs at his bottom lip, still peering up at Dream uncomfortably. Karl stumbles up onto Dream’s shoulder, clapping him forwards so that he has to catch himself against the table. “God _damn_ , is that song good or what?” He bellows into his ear, and then plants a smacking kiss on his cheek. “What’s up, Dreamie? You making friends already?”

“I— _have_ friends,” Dream says, peeling Karl’s sweaty fingers off of his side as he tries to look over at George, but he’s too distracted by the song coming up on the screen. 

“Fuck,” he says. “That’s me.” He grabs the shot in front of him and downs it, hopping up from his seat to writhe past Dream and Karl, who gladly takes his newly-freed seat. 

“Is he—” Dream says, and looks over at the screen. 

George has to stand on his tip-toes to wrangle the microphone down from the stand, tapping at it for the feedback. “Okay, so, I’m new here,” he says, accent tight on the swirling vowels. People hoot at him, and he flips off the table, setting off a round of jeers. “So no making fun of me, all right?” 

Dream looks at the screen mounted over his head as the instrumental kicks in.

_Hello, I Love You_ by The Doors.

Fuck his life.

** 

The next time Dream slides back into his seat, it’s while he’s holding a beer and a tall glass of water in two separate hands in a vain attempt to sober Karl up. The booth he’d taken is farther away from the still-singing crowd of people they know, but that hasn’t deterred George. He’s sitting where Dream had been sitting.

“You were great up there, by the way,” he tells George. He pushes Karl to the side so he can sit down. Karl grunts and flops his head over Dream’s shoulder, and then flips his upper body onto the table, and then sags his head down onto his forearms. He punctuates his actions with a loud groan. 

“Can’t go wrong with The Doors,” George says, and pushes a hand forward to pat Karl’s hair. 

“I hear that,” Dream says.

“Did you know,” Karl slurs, drooling against the table, “That Dream’s from Florida?” 

George looks away from Karl and back at Dream, like he’s some television show they’re discussing. “Is he, now?”

“Yeah,” Dream says. “I moved for school.”

“Like Morrison,” George says. “I named my cat after him.” 

“Really?” Dream says. “What’s his name?”

A beat of silence passes. “...Jim.” 

“Right,” Dream says. To his surprise, George laughs anyway, and leans his arms back over the table even when Karl tries to headbutt him with his forehead.

He tilts his head up so he’s looking at George with gooey eyes. “ _George_ ,” he says, sounding endeared. “You got a girlfriend?”

George snorts. “No. I don’t.”

“Why not?” Karl asks.

“Don’t really want one,” George says.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Karl says. “I don’t believe that. I’d kill for a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, well, you’re you,” George says. “You don’t think I could be happy on my own? Without a girlfriend?” 

“Oh,” Karl says. He pauses again, and grapples for the water Dream had brought him just to trace patterns in the fog. “I don’t know. Do you have a _boyfriend_?” 

“ _Karl_ ,” Dream chastises immediately, but George just laughs and says, “No, don’t worry, it’s—fine. But, no. No boyfriend either. I’d just rather not waste my time in relationships at the moment.” 

“Waste your time?” Dream repeats. 

“Yeah,” George says, leaning back in the booth. “I know it sounds selfish, but—I like being on my own. Relationships are messy and someone always gets hurt. Here I am—young, stupid, just moved to one of the most beautiful cities in the world—and I’m already supposed to get started on the serious shit in my life? I’ll pass.” 

“But…” Dream says, unable to articulate a response. He hadn’t even considered that’s a way George could think. He’s never said that when Dream’s made up conversations with him in his head. He realizes how pathetic his own brain is being and flushes red as the silence drags on. “But what if you fall in love?”

George laughs again. It’s not as nice as it had been previously. “You seriously believe in that stuff?”

“It’s _love_ ,” Dream says. “Not Santa Claus.”

“Oh, don’t get _this_ motherfucker started on true love,” Karl bemoans, and Dream has to shove him in the ribs so he’ll go somewhat quiet. “ _Ow_.” 

“I mean, it’s a nice thought, but,” George says, leaning his elbows forward on the table, “Think about it. Most marriages end in divorce or something, right? And I read once in Newsweek that you can stimulate parts of a person’s brain and make them _fall in love_ with a rock. Is that the _love_ you’re talking about?” 

Dream would tell him the honest truth—that it still sounds legitimate to him, and it’ll forever sound legitimate to him, because he hasn’t spent his entire life looking for something that doesn’t fucking _exist_. He knows he hasn’t. “I like it.”

George raises an eyebrow. “Like _what_?” 

“Letting men stomp all over his heart, apparently,” Karl says. “Give it a rest, Dream.”

Dream ignores him. “I don’t think people can say the stuff they say about something that’s not real. Like—in songs. They aren’t just making up the things they say.”

“They’re artists,” George says. “It’s their job.” 

No fucking way. “You can’t seriously believe that.” 

George just shrugs. “Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” he says. 

“ _Sooo_ ,” Karl says, trying to break the tension. “Who’s singing next?”

“I think it’s loverboy’s turn,” George says, still looking at him, and Dream says, “No—yeah, _no_ , I don’t sing in public,” and George says, “That’s such a lie. I’ve seen you lip-syncing the music you listen to every morning.” 

Dream looks over at Karl helplessly. He shrugs his shoulders.

“He’s kinda right, dude,” he says. 

“No, it’s okay,” George says. “It’s cute. It takes a lot of self-confidence to look ridiculous.”

“It’s what?” Dream asks. 

“Self-confidence,” Karl snorts, and Dream elbows him in the ribs again. 

“I’m really not drunk enough to sing in front of all of these people,” Dream says. 

George grabs his beer and leans it forward to clink it against Dream’s. 

“So let’s get you drunk,” he says. 

** 

Dream’s not a lightweight. He’s always prided himself on the fact that he’s not a lightweight. He may have some lightweight _tendencies_ , but that’s purely because of the fact that he isn’t exactly at his peak physical performance as of late. He wouldn’t have sang _Magnificent Seven_ by The Clash on his fifth shot if he still played football recreationally.

Karl is a lightweight, something that he’s pretty sure everyone at the bar has grasped by this point. He’s singing the National Anthem with the perpetually-crackling microphone and Dream knows he should be a good friend and go relocate him to the booth they were sitting at before, but he’s too busy trying not to look at George.

He’s trying not to look at George’s mouth, specifically, but his legs are fair game, and the gentle slope of his tan neck is fair game, and the places where his knuckles protrude from the back of his hands in perfect diagonals are fair game, and he’s saying, “Mmm, what is it, then?” 

“I have no clue,” Dream mumbles, and ducks his head down against his arms. He watches George’s face through the distortion of his beer glass. 

“I used to watch it every week,” George says, and hums the tune again. It still doesn’t sound right. 

“Me too,” Dream says. “God, why can’t we think of the stupid—the stupid A-Team theme song?”

George’s smile has gone lopsided and he’s leaning the side of his face onto his fist. “This is gonna bother me for weeks,” he says.

“Totally,” Dream says, and they laugh again, the noise going soft and pliant in his fingers. Dream’s head feels clear, fuzzy but soft like artificial turf. It’s quiet enough for him to go back inside his head, but he stays outside where their conversation has been lighting him up from the outside-in, but then Karl says, “ _And I’d proudly stand up!_ ” 

“He’s still going, looks like,” George says. 

“I said _stand_!” Karl continues loudly, shaking the microphone at the DJ, wrought with paranoia. A DJ who’s evidently not proud enough of an American.

“Oh, shit,” Dream says. 

Then starts the maneuver of getting Karl outside of the bar. He’s done it enough for it to be basically second-nature at this point, but he can tell it’s something that’s still making George laugh—a noise that’s bright and persevering that reminds him of the eternal glow of the sun. 

Shit. He’s kind of a fucking lightweight. 

“Oh- _kay_ , let’s get you home, man,” Dream says kindly, before accidentally slamming Karl’s hip onto the Uber he’d had George get for him. He doesn’t seem to notice, twisting on his side with a grunt before George opens the door to let him slip inside. He all but falls in like silk through fingers.

“This guy,” Karl slurs, shoving his head onto Dream’s forearm from where he’s holding the door open. “This fuckin’ guy. He’s the best. He’s the _best_ , George.” 

“Don’t I know it,” George says, but then looks over at Dream. “Is he—gonna be okay?”

“Oh, yeah, he’ll be fine,” Dream says. “He’s like a cockroach. He’ll stay alive anywhere.”

“ _Heeeey_ ,” Karl says. Dream cranes his head down to hear him better—expecting some kind of refutation to the cockroach thing—but Karl shoves a fist against his chest. “Not _you_ ,” he says, and then points a finger at George. “ _You_. He likes you.” 

Dream’s words catch in his throat, and he snatches away instinctively, avoiding George’s giggling face. “Okay, goodnight, Karl—”

“I mean, like, _likes you_ , likes you,” Karl continues, endearingly content on ruining Dream’s entire fucking life. “For real. Tell him, Dream.” 

Dream slams the door shut in response, and then watches the driver speed away. He inches away from George as if he’s about to go off, and this time the silence isn’t nice or quiet, it’s—unbearable. He can hear the whizzing of a fuse. 

“Sorry, um, that you had to—see that,” he says uncomfortably, and scratches the back of his neck. “It’s crazy, something about Karl and singing, you should’ve seen him this one time when he picked a fight with the DJ, it’s like, he doesn’t even know what he’s—”

“Is that true?” George asks. Dream looks at him. 

“What?” Dream asks. “The DJ thing? Yeah, he—”

“No,” George says. His face thaws into soft colors and runs like melted ice when he looks at him. “The other thing. Do you… like me?” 

Dream’s heart pounds in his throat, makes its way to his ears, flushes his face with bright red. He itches at the back of his neck again, and then at his throat, because George tilts his head again and steps closer, his bottom lip interspersed with spills of watercolor pink. 

“Yeah, I like you,” he says, stupidly. “Of course I do, why wouldn’t I like you?” 

“As a friend,” George says. 

“Yeah, as a friend,” Dream says. 

“Just as a friend?” George asks, and here’s something new—the tiny little note of interrogation in his warm voice, spreading into Dream’s mouth like tepid water. He has to think fast, but he can barely _think_. There has to be a right answer here. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean—I guess—I haven’t thought about… yes. As a friend.” 

“Nothing,” George says. “You’re just… interesting. I’d like for us to be friends. If that’s okay?” 

“Oh,” Dream says, his voice ending shakily as he tries to keep his body from vibrating off of the fucking ground in its morbid restlessness. “Yeah, that’s—me and you, friends, yeah. That sounds good. Perfect, actually.”

“Cool,” George says. 

“Cool,” Dream says back.

He walks home alone and doesn’t really stop feeling like shit. He should stop drinking.

* * *

**(27)**

Against all odds, Phil dibs Karl’s unsexy yet preppy Hanukkah card _the_ _instant seller_ _of the month_ , which bodes well for the prototypes Dream is supposed to be typing up for their next meeting. It’s not like he ever puts that much effort into his work _anyway_ , but that does mean he’ll be able to lower the already-low quality of his cards even more, which he’ll take any day of the week. 

It also gives him more time to look at George, which is something that he’ll either have to dial back on or completely stop doing—and he knows he isn’t going to be able to stop cold-turkey. It’s not that friends don’t look at each other, but friends don’t look at friends like _that_. 

He’s preoccupied with a few cards in the copy room when George walks in. 

“Hey,” he says, and Dream turns to send him a flimsy smile, says, “Oh, hi,” and continues pressing the photocopier down on his stack of papers with a lot more force than is actually necessary. 

George, kind of humming, comes to stand next to him and turns on his photocopier. He pulls a stack of files out of a manila envelope. Dream looks at his wrists. He separates two sheets and plants one onto the photocopier, never looking over at him, so Dream looks back at his card.

He should say something—ask him how his weekend was, maybe, but that hasn’t exactly ended well before. Maybe he could make some joke about Karl’s karaoke. There’s lots of jokes to be made about Karl’s karaoke. 

He watches the green buzz of the photocopier as he tries to work out something clever yet friendly he could say, but there’s not exactly an intersection between clever and friendly when it comes to George because he makes his tongue dry up and his heart thump out of his mouth. But then George turns around. 

“So that was…” Dream starts, but his voice trails off because George steps closer, his dress shoes clicking against the tiled floor. They’re making eye contact, George’s breath working against his lips.

“Fun, the… other night,” Dream continues, but then he can’t say anything else because George is kissing him. 

It’s awkward, at first: his mouth against Dream’s bottom lip, his hands hovering in some undiscovered county over his shoulders, and then Dream’s brain catches up and he’s kissing back, with all of the ferociousness and none of the worry, surprising himself, probably surprising George, too—but he can’t be bothered with how he looks because of how it _feels_ , George’s stubble against his jaw and his teeth against his lip. _Dream’s_ lip. His hands burying themselves in his hair. 

The photocopier rustles. George is gone gently, easing himself away from Dream’s mouth and eyeing him when his breath hitches. He presses their lips for a second together again, but then he pushes away, the touch of his fingers against Dream’s shoulders sending shockwaves through his skin. He turns back to the photocopier. 

He collects his papers in silence. Outside of the door, he can hear the click of keyboards and clean, organized office living, an undisrupted ecosystem working against Dream’s frenzied thinking. _Could be a practical joke, could be a friendly thing, could be a British thing, who fucking knows. Who. Fucking. Knows._

George, clutching his papers to his chest, steps closer to hover his mouth over Dream’s again, and he doesn’t dare breathe for fear of taking any of that air away from him. Instead of kissing him again, he just looks at Dream’s mouth, and Dream can’t tell what he’s thinking about. George leaves, after that. 

* * *

**(28)**

Someone is banging on Dream’s door. Loudly. It’s not George, and it’s sure as fuck not Patches. 

“You son of a _bitch_ ,” Sapnap says the minute Dream opens his door, shoving himself through the gap Dream makes with his body and flinging his jacket onto the couch. “Last night, at karaoke? Fucking _really_?”

“Sapnap—” Dream tries. 

“The same motherfucker you’ve been crying about and bitching about for _weeks_ now?” 

“I haven’t—”

“The same guy you said was _way out of your league_ and _totally straight_ and you’d have _no chance with, no matter what_? That fucking guy?”

“Sapnap,” Dream says desperately, using his body to block the doorway. “I’m seriously—”

“Did you bang him?” Sapnap demands.  
  


“What? I—”

“Blowjob?”

“ _No_!”

“Handjob?”

“Jesus! Just—no! We just fucking kissed,” Dream says. “Good _God_.” 

“Come _on_ ,” Sapnap says, practically whining. “Level with me. I’m your best friend. I tolerated, like, a fucking _month_ of this—this _whining_ , this talk talk _talk_ about this dude, nothing but George this, George that, George, George, George, I mean, you were practically _stalking_ the guy—”

“ _Sapnap_!” Dream hisses, and the shower turns off. Sapnap’s face goes white.

“Fuck,” he says. 

“Um, hi,” George says, from the doorway. Dream shuts his eyes and steps to the side so he can walk through into the living room, but he doesn’t open his eyes because that will make the situation real. That will put Sapnap and George into the same room. Horror story. Fucking snuff movie. “I’m George.” 

“ _George_ ,” Sapnap says, like he’s just learned his name for the first time. “Hi! I’m Sapnap. Or Nick. Either/or.” He puts his hand out. George shakes it. “It’s _so_ nice to meet you. I’m loving the accent. God Save the Queen and all of that.” 

“Thanks,” George says wearily. His hair is wet and he’s wearing Dream’s shirt.

“Dream, I didn’t know you had British friends,” Sapnap says, putting his hands on his hips. “Unless you’ve, like, brought him up before and I’ve just forgotten? It can be kind of hard to keep track, I mean, so many guys in and out of his life… it can get…” he must see the way Dream kind of looks like he has tears in his eyes, so he shuts his mouth. “Anyways, I’ll be… on my way. Say, Dream, let me know if any— _jobs_ open up, all right?”

Dream all but shoves him out of the door and then plants his back against the wood, panting heavily. He doesn’t think he’s gotten a moment to breathe since yesterday night. “If you heard—”

“Heard what?” George asks. Completely innocently.

“Oh, good,” Dream says. “Good. You ready to go?” 

“Yeah,” George says, gathering his wallet and keys from Dream’s coffee table. “I’m stalking—I mean, _starving_.” 

“He’s _exaggerating_ ,” Dream says, grinning stupidly as George slips through the door and he follows him by the coattails. 

* * *

**(198)**

They’re sitting in front of Cinnamon Paradise for what definitely has to be nearing the tenth time, and it’s the early evening, just like how it had been that first night. It’s colder, so George is wearing his jacket, but the sky is just as lavender, dulling his skin into the color of seafoam. He’s not talking, scooping his strawberry ice cream into his mouth.

Dream taps his nails against his cone. Across from them, the girl and boy who always sit on the bench spooning ice cream into each other’s mouths are looking at each other. He snorts, elbowing George’s arm.

“Check it out,” he says, crunching his ice-cream cone between his teeth. George’s eyes dart to the couple, but he doesn’t say anything. “That is hot. I’m very turned on right now.” 

“Leave them alone,” George says, still not smiling. Dream frowns. “I mean, who are _you_? They’re happy.” 

“I’m not…” Dream says, but he doesn’t really know how to continue. “I was just making a joke.”

“They’re happy,” George says again, looking into his cup. He swirls the remaining ice cream he has left over into a soup. “It’s cute. Just mind your own business.” He puts his spoon into his mouth. “Could learn from them, I reckon.”  
  


“I guess,” Dream says. “Whatever.” 

They don’t talk for a while after that. 

* * *

  
  


**(31)**

“I can’t believe you’ve been here for, like, two months, and you already know better places to eat than I do,” Dream is saying, slurping the dripping chocolate off of the side of his ice-cream cone. They’re at some place called Cinnamon Paradise, and it’s just a few blocks down from the office, and it’s fucking _good_. Like, sit-on-the-curb- and-lick-your-cup-clean good. “This hot fudge is changing my life.” 

“Should’ve gotten the strawberry,” George says, and leans forward to wipe chocolate from the corner of Dream’s mouth. “It’s so good. Here.” 

He scoops some onto his spoon and shovels it into Dream’s mouth, and he only chokes for a second. It _is_ really good, unsurprisingly, and Dream looks at George for a second and then leans over and kisses him. George kisses back, like it’s easy. Like it’s a thing he wants to do just as much as Dream does. Like they’re good at it, but only together.

Dream pulls away. He wipes his mouth clean with the back of his hand. He doesn’t really want to stop, and George leans back into him like he doesn’t want to stop, either, but there _are_ people who can probably see them through the giant window of the parlor and Dream _is_ getting better at exercising self-control so he just grins and says, “Ew. You taste like _pink_.” 

“I’ll take your word for it,” George says, and pops his lips apart from each other where they’re sugary-slick. He leans back onto the curb and shoves their feet together, his Converse knocking against the side of Dream’s foot. “Here, you can have the rest of mine. I’ll just—take this from your hands.”

He yanks Dream’s cone away from his hand, splattering them both in chocolate syrup. Dream replaces his cone with George’s cup. He spoons it into his mouth and looks across the street, where there’s a girl sitting in the grass, with her head splayed out into a boy’s lap. He’s singing softly to her. 

“Oh, they’re always here,” George says, when he sees Dream staring. “What’d you think? Is that the height of modern romance you’re always talking about?” 

“They can’t hear us, right?” Dream says. 

George smacks his arm. “That shouldn’t change your mind!” They don’t say anything for a second, his heart reverberating through where Dream has his jaw buried into his hair. 

“It doesn’t,” Dream says. “Pinky promise.” He mouths his way into the collar of George’s shirt. He keeps his lips there, sticky with sugar against his feverish skin.

“I know your heart says yes,” George says. 

“Neither here nor there,” Dream says. “What does _your_ heart say?” 

“ _Yes_ , of course,” George agrees, and Dream bursts into giggles, matching the rate of his heart to the thumps he can feel under his fingertips. 

“This is fun,” George says, a moment later. He leans up, and Dream thinks he moves in to kiss him, but all he does is run his thumb against his bottom lip and say, “You’re fun.” 

“Thanks,” Dream says, and untangles their feet from each other. He shoves more ice cream into his mouth as he watches George tilt around on the curb so he’s sitting with his elbows against his knees. He’s wearing Dream’s shirt, a Fleetwood Mac shirt, and dark jeans cuffed over his shoes. 

“I mean, I should also just tell you, like, up-front,” George says. There’s a pause. “I’m not really looking for…” He taps his fingers against the curb, “...anything…” he runs his fingers against the hem of Dream’s knee, “...serious.” He looks up with a hiss of air between his teeth, grimacing his mouth like it’s something he’ll hope Dream will agree with. “Is that okay?” 

Dream doesn’t say anything. He feels, out of nowhere, naive. Like he’s just stumbled in on something he wasn’t quite prepared to hear about. 

“Sure,” he says, instead of explaining himself. 

“Oh,” George says, his face relaxing noticeably. “Good. It can kind of… freak some guys out, when I say that.” 

“Not me,” Dream says unconvincingly. 

“Let’s just have fun,” George says, with the same tiny glint in his eyes—like Dream had never been the one to put it there in the first place. “Let’s just—hang out. No pressure, no labels, no obligations. Just us.” He waits for a beat. “Okay?” 

“Yeah,” Dream says. He leaves the unfinished cup of ice-cream on the curb, and George watches him. 

“Do you wanna hold hands while we walk back home?” George asks.

“Yeah,” Dream says again. 

**

George has his fingers taut in the cotton of Dream’s shirt when they collide into his room—mouths red, fingers scrawling, guns ablaze, George’s fingers against his jaw and his mouth against George’s collarbone and George’s hands in his hair, and his mouth against George’s mouth—always finding its way back to George’s mouth. 

George relaxes his fingers, but he still shoves at Dream’s hips to work him deeper into the room. Dream laughs against his mouth when George finally knocks out his knees and gets him flat on his back, so he has to move backwards and crawl back onto the bed, George settling over the upper half of his body and digging his nails into his ribcage.

And then he realizes: George’s mouth, George’s hands against his scalp and squeezing around his throat, and—the uncomfortable broken spring in Dream’s bed digs into his back—the way he can feel their chests pushing together, George’s heartbeat against his skin, his—

The spring under his back is fucking killing him. George is everywhere: he says something into his ear, something filthy and low, and his fingers work their way against his lower back, biting Dream’s earlobe against his teeth, and he’s everywhere in a way Dream has never felt before, and he can’t help himself when he says, “Wait, wait.”

George freezes. “Yeah?” 

“I just,” Dream says, and pushes at him slightly so that George falls backwards onto the bed with a bewildered expression on his face. His shirt has ridden up his stomach, and his hair sticks up where Dream had been mouthing at it. “I’ll be—I'll be back in a sec, okay? Just... I’ll be right back.” 

George hums at him, flopping onto his back and staring up at the ceiling as Dream heads off into his en-suite bathroom. He waits for a second before sliding the noisy lock against the door, scared to face himself in the mirror.

He has to peer at himself through his fingers. If he’d thought George was in bad shape, he’s even worse: his shirt exposes most of one of his shoulders where George felt it away, and there’s a dark pink, fuck-off hickey melting in the junction of his neck and jaw. He’s blushy all over his nose and cheeks—he looks sun-kissed, which isn’t far from the truth.

He grasps the corners of the sink. He runs the water. _Settle_ , he tells himself calmly. _Don’t get too excited. He’s just a boy._ He runs his hands under the water, pushing them across his face, running into his hair. _There’s lots of them who look like that._ But that’s not the main point. _And like what you like_ . But there’s no indication they’d like him just as much. Not that George likes him—he doesn’t know _how_ much George likes him. That’s kind of the problem. 

“They’re everywhere,” he says to himself in the mirror. “Calm yourself. Are you calm?” His reflection doesn’t say anything. He tries to read his own mind, but even that doesn’t work. He splashes his face with water again and leans in closer. “Okay. Then it’s time to go back in.”

Like he’s fucking readying himself for war. It’s not like George is going to kill him—and he’s probably not going to be gone when Dream gets back, even though it’s a slim possibility, but he should be preparing for _every_ possibility. 

It’s just so uncertain. George could do anything. They could _be_ anything, and anything could happen, because words like _boyfriend_ are words with strict definitions that outline his life, but they’re not using that word. They’re not using any words. And maybe Dream wants the outline—maybe he fucking needs it. He coughs, flushes the toilet, and unlocks the door.

“Hi,” George says. He’s just wearing Dream’s shirt.

“Hi,” Dream echoes. He doesn’t really hear anything else George says because his ears are ringing too loudly.

(It’s all a motion blur after that.) 

* * *

**(35)**

“This seems excessive,” George says, at the head of the shopping cart where he’s shoving it along the tiled floor. Dream huffs and scrolls along the aisles of the Whole Foods, eyeing a row of organic cheeses. 

“Brie or cheddar?” He asks.

“Brie,” George says, and Dream makes a face. He grabs hold of the cheddar and brie with one hand and drops them both into the cart. “Oh, come _on_. If we’re splitting the price, I’m voting brie and brie only.” 

“We’re not _splitting_ it, because I bought your ice cream the other day,” Dream says. “ _And_ your coffee today. Since you’re such a charity case.” George makes a face at him. “Tell you what, I’ll contribute to half if you can spell _charcuterie_.”

George opens his mouth to defend himself, but Dream ignores him in his own round of giggles as he hops onto the front of the shopping cart. It's packed pretty full of fruits and salami and cheese and dipping sauces, so all George does is yelp in surprise and push the cart forward so Dream doesn’t tip it over. He grins at George victoriously.

“Next stop—cherry tomatoes,” Dream says. “And baby carrots. That’s what my heart’s telling me.”

“Listen, I’m not saying we _shouldn’t_ buy organic vegetables at a Whole Foods so we can eat them on a picnic blanket,” George begins, still pushing Dream forward by the stomach with the head of the shopping cart, “But I really don’t feel like eating garden weeds while we’re surrounded by toddlers and dogshit. Am I allowed a vote?”

“No, because you’ll vote for McDonalds,” Dream says.

“Like you don’t want McDonalds,” George says. He nods off into the direction of the vegetables. “I don’t see cherry tomatoes.”

Dream frowns and drags the cart closer so he can survey the fruits. Next to them, two women are feeling up a swirling green root and discussing it dispassionately. Dream has to step back so he can whisper into George’s ear without drawing attention to himself. 

“What is that?” George whispers. 

“I… don’t know,” Dream says. They survey the vegetables together for a while longer. “Should we get McDonalds instead?”

“God,” George says. “ _Yes_.” 

* * *

**(51)**

Somewhere along the way, Dream realizes what it’s like to like the people you sleep with. It’s not that he didn’t _like_ most of his serious relationships, but it had always been more of a necessity for him, to make sure he always had someone by his side. Which means, of course, that there’ll always be something off when he doesn’t. 

But then again—maybe they were just too _different_ , if anything. Maybe the conversation didn’t flow as easily. Like now: he and George are walking down the aisles of the San Francisco Public Library, with its barrel-vaulted ceilings pouring down warm, melancholy light. 

George is walking next to him, and he’s running his fingers along the spines of books like he’s actually absorbing the bullshit Dream has been spewing—bullshit about dead authors and depressed poets and words that don’t really mean anything, not in the grand scheme of things, but George is still listening. 

“And… I don’t know, maybe I’m just too optimistic,” Dream says, and pauses at the end of the section they’ve been walking through, stuffed full with paper copies of plays. “I dunno. It just felt like—there was very little to juxtapose that kind of… really crazy closing monologue, right? When she’s thanking Kissinger and all of that shit?” He hesitates, thumbing against the wood of the shelves. “I just wouldn’t keep it so bleak the whole way through. But, like, whatever. I probably misread it. Like, a lot.” 

“I don’t think you misread it,” George says, surprising him. He leans his back against the shelves, and they’re solid enough that they don’t topple over. “So how would you keep it?” 

“What?” Dream asks. “I don’t know. Maybe I’d just introduce some internal conflict into Lemon’s thoughts. She can be kind of one-dimensional.” He realizes what he sounds like, flushing deeply. “Not like it would be better than Wallace Shawn’s writing, though, so—”

“Don’t just—explain yourself,” George says, interrupting him. “Tell me about it. Walk me through it.”

Dream laughs, for a second, thinking George is joking, but he just blinks at him again, slowly yet beguiled like a cat. Dream tries to relax again against the quietness of the library, the soft hustle of feet and George’s breathing. It kind of works, and he’ll take what he can get.

“Um, like, I really don’t know,” he says. “Maybe… there’s this scene where Aunt Dan is explaining this love affair she had to Lemon, and she says, basically, like, _the excitement you feel for people has nothing to do with love, because you always scare yourself out of it, and you shouldn’t be able to scare yourself out of love_ , which is—like—true, I guess, but she never—she never explains _what_ it has to do with. Or how you _are_ supposed to feel.” He falters, watching George’s eyes track his face. “I guess I’d just—I think it would be—interesting to see how Lemon could disagree, I guess? How she could interpret what she’s saying in a different way. I don’t know.” 

George is smiling at him a little bit. If he’s managed to comprehend anything Dream’s said, his face doesn’t imply it. “Did that make _any_ sense?” Dream says, and George laughs. 

“A little,” George says. “I was kind of distracted. You don’t really get excited about things like that.”

“What?” Dream says. “Yeah, I do. Remember when that bird at the park ate seeds from my palm?” 

“Well, yeah, that was exciting for everyone involved,” George says, stepping forward to continue into the aisle in front of them. “But like—mostly I mean, like—I don’t know. I guess I’ve just never seen you fired up like that. You look different when you’re talking about things you like.”

“I look—what?” Dream says, feeling the color rising to his face. “You’re such a fucking idiot. You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.” 

George just laughs, and then he looks down around him, at the empty row they’ve just walked the entire length of. He sits down against the bookshelf and looks up at Dream as if beckoning him to sit next to him. Dream listens, sitting down and crushing his knees to his chest.

“What’s your book about?” He asks. 

“Huh?” Dream says. “Oh, you mean—I’m not really working on it anymore.” 

“Why?” George whispers. He leans forward so their feet push together.

That’s the fucking question, isn’t it? Dream’s been asking himself that question since he moved on—since he got the new job and moved his entire life to the west coast and realized that there were other things he had to do with his life. Not _better_ , but _other_. “I don’t know. Just didn’t see a point.”

“That’s dumb,” George says. “Nothing has a point. If it was actually that important for you to write down whatever you were thinking about, I don’t see why you stopped.” He studies Dream’s face from where he’s planted it over his knees. “Unless you feel like your calling is writing greeting cards.”

“I don’t, actually,” Dream says. “But it’s just…” he doesn’t know what to say, other than the uncomfortably personal. _I can’t afford it? I know I’ll never get published? I don’t remember the last time I had the urge to do something completely for myself?_ “It’s complicated. Is your calling being Phil’s secretary?” 

“God, no,” George says. “But—I don’t know. I guess it was better than the alternative.” 

“Alternative?” Dream asks. 

George pushes his fingers against his shoe, working against the laces. “Home, I guess.” 

Dream smiles, a little. Their toes knock together on the carpeted floor. “You don’t have to stay there forever, you know. The point is getting out.”

“I suppose,” George says. “But it’s harder. Because my family’s there and everything.” 

“Why’d you leave?” Dream asks. George tilts his head back onto the shelves again, looking up at the ceiling. The smell of paper catches on his eyelashes, on Dream’s fingertips.

“It always rains over there,” George says. “And people couldn’t stand the fact that I—existed, to put it quite frank. Really fucking sucked over there. You know what small towns are like.”

“Not like you do,” Dream says. 

George goes contemplative again. He pushes his foot against the flat of Dream’s shoe to trace a pattern there. 

“I didn’t expect you to say that,” he says. 

* * *

**(68)**

“Okay—I think—yeah. Your arm should be—ow!”

“Shit, sorry, sorry, sorry!”

“No, it’s—as long as I don’t fall, I’m—okay. Good. God, you’re way too tall for this to—”

“Okay, but _I’m_ not the one who rented the movie—”

“—I didn’t say we had to _recreate_ it, Dream. We could just _watch_ it. I don’t think anyone’s ever managed to—ow—have sex in a shower in real life where they don’t have a script supervisor off-screen—” 

“Well _we_ are going to and it’s gonna work. Trust me.”

“Yeah, it’ll work because _I’m_ doing all of the heavy lifting.”

“You’re doing _no_ heavy lifting. The guy in the video could actually pick the lady up. Just saying.” 

“I can—”

“—Don’t, don’t don’t don’t you’ll _drop_ me, _George!_ —”  
  


* * *

**(109)**

They spend a lot of time in Dream’s apartment. He gets used to seeing George like a constantly-moving light fixture: petting Patches, combining his own clothes with Dream’s laundry, playing video games on his couch on weekend mornings and kissing the back of Dream’s neck before he leaves in the evenings. _Some_ evenings. 

Safe, easy. Perpetually stressful, the more used to George he gets. Because he has two options here: find a way to hold on tighter, or completely let go. One option is a lot more desirable than the other. 

He thinks about the mission plan for keeping George in his life a lot, but he always figures it’ll have to be one of those things he eyeballs along the way. The perfect opportunity arises on one of the days they spend a long time in Union Square and George tells him, on the bus ride home, “Hey, we’re pretty close to my apartment. You could spend the night at my place if you want.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Dream says, like it doesn’t immediately make him twitch the fuck out in his head, and then he’s walking behind George on the row of stairs leading up to his apartment and standing behind him patiently as he unlocks his door, flicking the light as he walks inside. 

“Make yourself at home,” George says. 

This is it. What he’d been waiting for. And it looks like—some fucking twenty-something guy’s apartment, admittedly, but it’s not something Dream can take for granted like he would with other people. It’s _George_. Omniscient and unknowable. 

“I’ll be right back,” George tells him, draping his denim jacket over the back of his couch and treading off into the direction of his bathroom. Dream looks around the living room: his moving boxes are still spread out in the corners of the yellow walls like decoration, and next to a row of hot pink candles on his mantlepiece, there’s a framed diagram Dream has to squint against to read. 

He brushes his eyes over the rest of the room’s knick-knacks, catching on plants and pillows and patterned mugs. The sink stops running and Georges comes out of his bathroom, bouncing up to Dream again.

“Is this some abstract art piece?” Dream asks, pointing at the framed diagram. George laughs and picks it up in his hands.

“Kind of,” he says. “You know Ada Lovelace? She was Lord Byron’s daughter, and she was the first computer programmer, basically. And _that’s_ the first computer program. She made it a century before the computer was even created.” He places it back against the mantlepiece. “My mum got it for me. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a lot bigger of a fucking geek than I actually am but I guess it’s kind of cool.” 

“You are pretty geeky,” Dream murmurs. George elbows him. 

“That’s not nice,” he says. 

“Maybe I’m not nice,” Dream says.

“You’re plenty nice,” George says dismissively. He walks away from his fireplace to make his way to the couch, and Dream follows, toeing his shoes off by the door before settling next to him and draping his feet over George’s lap. “And plus you only really get mean when you’re flustered.”

Dream kicks him in the thigh. “Idiot.”

“Yeah, like that,” George says, catching his ankle in his palm. “Hey, do you think Phil ever announced who won that raffle thing he talked about at the last meeting?”

Dream shrugs. “I wasn’t really paying attention, so I dunno.”

“I don’t think you _ever_ pay attention,” George says. “Do you even like this job?” 

“Do you like _your_ job?” Dream fires back. 

“Yeah,” George says. He shrugs a little when Dream sends him a look. “I mean, what’s not to like? Paid benefits. Weekends off. Cute coworkers.”

“Plural?” Dream asks. George wiggles his eyebrows at him. “Very funny. I mean, I guess it’s fine. It’s pretty good compared to other jobs, but it’s, like—it only really makes me money.”

“Is that a bad thing?” George asks.

“It’s not a _bad_ thing,” Dream says. “It’s just boring. And it doesn’t—it’s not what I saw myself doing, but that’s… just something you’re supposed to, like, make peace with, I guess. It didn’t work out. Not the end of the world or anything.” 

“I used to think like you,” George says, all of a sudden. He’s still looking down at his lap, running his nails over the denim of Dream’s clothed leg lightly. “Like, I studied to be a programmer, but when I actually got a job to be one, I realized that I wasn’t really—like, it was doable, but I wasn’t happy. And I thought something was wrong with me. But I figure—if you’re really just getting enjoyment just from your job, isn’t that kind of fucked up, in a way? Like, why can you only look for happiness from your fucking _job_? It’s not like being an assistant makes me happy, but it lets me pay for things that make me happy. So, like… it’s good, in that way.” He looks up at Dream again, tilting his head in introspection. “Huh. I haven’t really told anyone that before.” 

Dream wants to know more. He wants George to tell him everything. He wants to pull him apart by the stitches and have the multicolored patchwork of his thoughts pour against his hands so he can pick them apart piece by piece. He wants to know why George moved and how long he’ll stay and how long he’ll let Dream pretend this is something he can do forever.

“I guess I’m not just anyone,” he says. 

* * *

**(110)**

“So,” Sapnap says, looking down at the foosball table in entirely unfeigned disinterest, “What’s going on between you and George?”

“I dunno,” Dream mutters. Around them, the sports bar clacks in tune with his soccer players as the people in the booths around them chatter on about the football game mounted on the big screen. 

“Is he your boyfriend?” Karl asks. He’s holding a plate of pigs in blankets. Dream eyes them but doesn’t reach for one because he’s too distracted by how good Sapnap is at blocking his goal.

“I wouldn’t say _that_ ,” Dream says. The truth is he’s been trying not to think about it. He’d left George’s apartment this morning still kind of fucked in the head, because they’ve been doing everything couples do—brushing their teeth together, George giving him some of his clothes to wear, the whole _I’ve-never-told-anyone-this_ dance, watching The A-Team, for God’s sake, but nothing’s different. George hasn’t said anything, and Dream still feels like he’s _waiting_ for something. 

“It’s not an unreasonable question,” Sapnap says. “Like, watch this. Karl, do you have a girlfriend?”

“No, I do not,” Karl says. “In fact, women are repulsed by me. How about you, Sapnap?” 

“Why, yes, I do,” Sapnap says, and raises an eyebrow at Dream. “Thank you for asking, Karl. I’m not at liberty to say her name, but it rhymes with Shaomi Shampbell. See, Dream? Easy.”

“If he’s not your boyfriend, what _would_ you call him?” Karl asks. 

“Oh, come on,” Dream says. He pushes against the dials of the foosball table forcefully, morbid paranoia rising to his skin like an itchy scab. “We’re not middle-schoolers. We know how we feel.” He knows Karl and Sapnap look up to share a contained laugh, but he doesn’t indulge them with any eye contact. “We don’t need to put labels on it. Boyfriend, partner, I mean—that stuff is all so juvenile.” 

“You sound gay,” Karl says. 

“Really fucking gay,” Sapnap agrees. “But, I mean, come on. You’ve been ‘seeing’ this guy for like, what, three months, now?”

“Something like that,” Dream says.

“And you haven’t discussed it?” Sapnap asks skeptically. 

“No,” Dream says. “He’s not… like that.” 

“Like what?” Sapnap asks.

“ _Normal_ ,” Karl interjects. “Have you made him a CD yet?” 

Dream reaches for a pig in blankets instead of answering. He has terrible friends. 

* * *

**(118)**

“Um, so, I wanted to ask you something,” Dream begins. They’re driving on the Golden Gate, twinging the blue waters outside of the windows in gentle white froth.

“Yeah?” George asks. 

It’s simple. A few words. It’s not like he’s proposing or anything, which is something he’ll never be able to do if he never asks _this_ question first, a question that’s been asked by philosophers and middle-schoolers alike, two groups of people who would be a lot more adept at navigating this situation than he is. 

The lights of the cars in front of them blur George’s face in hypnotic swirls of glowing white. Dream taps his thumb against his steering wheel looking for the right phrasing. Philosophers and middle-schoolers alike; it can’t be that complicated. _What is this? What are we doing? What are_ we _, George?_

It’s shitty. It sounds shitty in his own head. He takes a deep breath—feeling sick to his stomach—and then says—

“Wait,” George says, and leans over, turning the radio up louder. It’s a Bob Marley song. “I mean, come on. We can’t talk during this song. It’s too beautiful.” 

Dream smiles a little bit, uncomfortably, but it melts away easily when George looks over at him, humming along with the tune and tilting his head in Dream’s direction to get him to sing along. It doesn’t really work. When he looks down, George’s hand is top of his on the stick shift. 

He’s not going to ask anything tonight.

* * *

**(145)**

“Is it just me,” Dream says, twirling his straw around in his drink, “Or is it really fucking stupid that people go out to places like this at all?”

George doesn’t look up—he scoffs a little bit, actually, like Dream saying that is something a little expected. The bartender shifts away from them to serve a group of middle-aged men, leaving them in their secluded corner of the bar with their overpriced mojitos and squeaky barstools. He doesn’t know the place George had invited him out to, because he’s pretty sure if George had told him how crowded it was, he wouldn’t have come. It’s called _The Gulp_ , for God’s sake. Not exactly his thing. 

“I mean, thanks,” George says. “I thought you’d like it here.”

“No, not you,” Dream says, feeling his face flush. “You—I mean, that’s the thing. You come here because you like the atmosphere or the drinks or whatever. I don’t know. Because you have a personality that revolves around more than just...”

“More than just what?” George asks thinly. Dream shifts in his seat, looking around the bar. It’s hard to reconcile the person he knows George is with the area, because before tonight, he doesn’t think he could ever place him in a gay bar. He just wouldn’t fit. Sore thumb. 

“That’s not what I mean,” Dream says. “It’s just, like—it’s not your whole… thing. You know? You’re cool about it. Like me.”

“Cool about _what_?” George says. “You’re being vague. On purpose.”

“I’m not,” Dream says. 

“Okay,” George says. He looks down at his drink. They both got mojitos, but he’d gotten his with extra mint to drown out the lime. Next to him, a man in a dress shirt and expensive suit slides against the bartop, nudging his elbow against George’s shoulder. George doesn’t look at him, pushing his body to the side so he’s facing Dream. He has slicked-back hair. Real douchebag. 

“Hey,” Douchebag says.

“...Hi,” George says. Dream studies the man, but he doesn’t even bother pretending like George is sitting next to someone, and that’s the whole fucking _problem_ about places like this—if they’d gone to a normal bar, they could hang out on their own and dudes wouldn’t have the nerve to just show up and hit on George. And now Dream doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. Great. 

“How’s it going?” Douchebag asks.

“Okay,” George says, hyper-focused on the swirl of his straw in his drink. 

“You live around here?” Douchebag asks.

“Not… too far,” George says.

“‘Cause I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before,” Douchebag continues. 

“You’re not too observant,” George says, but Douchebag laughs instead of walking away, which is a really bad sign. Dream feels tiny—diluted, small, _ignored_ . He’s right fucking there. He’s pretty sure anyone who wasn’t a macho gay dude too in love with himself to realize other people exist would realize he’s _right fucking there_.

“That’s funny,” Douchebag says, and leans in. “You’re funny. Let me buy you a drink.”

“I have a drink,” George says. He kind of tilts his head over to Dream, and Dream doesn’t really know what to do from there, especially because Douchebag finally— _finally_ —eyes him, and says, “Wait, you’re with _this_ guy?” 

A beat passes. “Hi,” Dream says. “I’m—”

“Come on,” Douchebag says, looking back down at George, who’s twisting his body closer to the bar than the stool, at this point. “One drink.” 

“No thanks,” George says firmly. The tension remains heated on the stovetop, and then—in that magical instant—it boils over. 

“You’re serious?” Douchebag says, a little louder this time. “ _This_ guy?” 

“Come on, man—” Dream starts, but George just says, “You know what? Don’t be rude. I’m flattered, but I’m not interested. Can you go over there and leave us alone?” A beat passes, a hot piece of tension where he taps his nails against the glass of his cup. “Please?” 

“Free country,” Douchebag says, a moment later, turning to walk away. His face is rough and tense where he’s trying to hold back the urge to punch Dream in the face, probably. Dream knows he wants to punch Douchebag in the face. He’s never _punched_ anyone, and he’s glad he’s holding back, because he doesn’t think he’d do it the right way, and the guy is walking away anyway, so it might not even be that big of a problem—

“Can’t believe _this_ is your boyfriend,” Douchebag tells George, with this cocky, pathetic laugh, and Dream gets out of his seat, balls up his hand, and punches him in the fucking mouth.

There’s this weird silence, for a second. Douchebag ducks down on the floor, and George turns around in his seat, says, “What are you doing?” And Dream doesn’t even have time to point at his bleeding knuckles because Douchebag grabs hold of the collar of his shirt and punches him right back. 

**

“I mean, did you _see_ that punch?” Dream asks. His nose is pounding with every step George tugs him up on the walk to his apartment. He wants to tell George that this isn’t even the worst way he’s been kicked out of a bar. He’s been dragged out drunk and been the one dragging someone _else_ out drunk, so punching a dude in the face is actually one of the cooler ways he’s gotten his nose busted so far, and God, is it busted. 

It pounds with every step George tugs him up on the walk to his apartment, and when he hooks his arm around his neck, he doesn’t seem too interested in Dream’s painful, overexcited blabbering. “I don’t think I’ve ever punched anyone, like, ever. It felt like it happened fast, but it also felt, like, so _slow_ —” George pushes his arm off of his neck and walks deeper into his apartment. He opens his fridge and finds a bag of peas to give to Dream. Only then does Dream see how tightly he’s clutching his arms together. “Wait. What’s wrong?” 

“I can’t believe you,” George says. 

There’s a moment where Dream can feel his excitement drown out of him as if sucked out. “What?” He asks, knowing he sounds indignant and doing nothing to buffer it, pushing the bag against his jaw tightly. “What do you mean, you _can’t believe me_? I just got my ass kicked for you.” 

“Oh, that was for _me_?” George says, crossing his arms against his chest. Dream feels the wetness from the peas drip to his feet. “That wasn’t for me, Dream, let’s be honest.” 

“Oh, come on,” Dream says. “That guy was an _asshole_!” 

“Okay, but you didn’t have to _hit_ him,” George snaps. “You could’ve just let me handle it. You don’t have to fight my fucking battles. I mean, really? You have this weird vendetta for—” he looks at Dream again, and something over his face flutters away from them. “Never mind.” 

“No, tell me,” Dream says. “Tell me.”

“I’m really tired,” George says, quietly, and it’s exactly what Dream had been afraid he’d say, which is why the panic turns red-hot and vicious. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

Dream shifts all of his weight onto another leg, clutching the peas until he can work them out between his freezing fingers. He can still taste the blood smearing his upper lip, and even though it’s gone brown and he probably looks like shit, George is still looking at him so softly, but the eyes aren’t for him. That’s just what he looks like. That’s just who he is.

“No,” Dream says, turning on his heel before he can leave the door. “You know what? I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” He freezes, watching George pick at his nails between his fingers. “What’s going _on_ , George?” 

“Nothing’s going on,” he says. Gentle. Like Dream is something he has to be tender with. It pisses him off more than it should. “We’re just...”

“ _What_ ?” Dream says, acidly. He’s pinning George against the wall with his eyes, forcing the words out of his mouth, doing everything he can to take advantage of the deathly silence. “We’re just _what_?” 

“We’re just frie—”

“ _No_ !” Dream says. He watches George turn around, head over to his bed in the center of the room. “No, don’t—don’t even try to pull that shit with me. You’re telling me _this_ is what friends do? Go on dates? Kiss in the copy-room? We fucked in the shower, George, friends my fucking _balls_.” 

“I… like you, Dream,” George says, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I like hanging out with you, I just worry that—” he looks at Dream again, pressing his lips together tightly. “Do I even make you happy?”

“What?” Dream asks, taken aback. “Yes.” 

“No,” George says. “Not like that. We go on dates and kiss in the copy room and fuck in the shower but that doesn’t make you happy. It can’t.”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me what makes _me_ happy?” Dream bites back. “I’m not you. I can’t just— _let go_ of shit I hate. Shit I don’t want to do. I don’t have that luxury. So sue me for taking what I can get out of things that make me happy.”

George shakes his head. “I don’t want you like _that_.” 

“Okay,” Dream says, ears ringing. “Okay, you don’t. But—” and then it strikes at him again, how he knew but he was pretending he didn’t know because he thought, for a miserable fucking second, that things could be different. Again. He thought about it again. He throws the bag of peas on the ground.

“Fuck this,” he says, and leaves.

* * *

**(146)**

Dream tries to sleep that night. It doesn’t work. His face hurts and he keeps looking over at his phone, waiting for George to magically change his mind and tell him that he loves him, actually, and he’s so glad he punched that stupid prick in the face so they can finally be together forever, but of course he doesn’t, because Dream probably would’ve hated him if he did. It would be too perfect. Line up too well with the fantasy. 

He can’t turn his brain off. His door rings somewhere around two, and he almost trips over Patches going to get it, thinking that maybe Sapnap somehow found out through some untapped psychic ability that he’s in a shitty mood. 

It’s not even a shitty _mood_ —it’s a permanent state, at this point, something that’s been gnawing at him as long as he’s known George. As long as they’ve started fucking around and he let himself ignore the thing brewing under the surface. The burning, throbbing, _excruciating_ final sensation that he isn’t different, to George, but George is different to him. 

He opens the door, and it’s not difficult to make out the silhouette. George is wearing a jacket he doesn’t recognize, and his hair is a mess, eyes brimmed over in sleepless brown circles. Dream looks down at him leaning his head against the doorframe. The hallway is twinged with the smell of rain. 

“I shouldn’t have done that,” George tells him. His voice heals. 

“Done what?” Dream says. 

“Gotten mad at you,” George says quietly. Dream doesn’t invite him inside, because he still isn’t sure how much he wants George in his space again. The yellow lights behind him buzz the pallid skin of his face with a faint luster. “I’m sorry.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a while, trying to put his thoughts into place—or figure out what he’s thinking at all. He cycles through a lot of possibilities before he says any of them, but only one really captures what he wants. What he thinks he _should_ want, if he’s to walk out of this interaction unharmed.

“Look, we don’t have to put a label on it,” he says. “That’s fine. I get it. But I just—you know—I need some… consistency.” 

“I know,” George murmurs.

“I just wanna know that you’re not gonna, like, wake up in the morning and… feel differently,” Dream says. George laughs, but it doesn’t sound mean. It just sounds tired. He steps forward, tilting his mouth up to meet Dream’s. The patter of rain is interrupted by a hearty thump of thunder that crashes straight against Dream’s chest.

“I can’t give you that,” he says, against Dream’s mouth, but never moving their lips against each other. “No one can.” And Dream has to laugh too, a little, because he’s so pathetic, completely lost in the shadow of George’s eyelashes against his cheeks, the way the hallway lights up the crown of his head like a dirty halo. 

And then he kisses him. Dream’s split lip crushes against his mouth, and he winces. George pulls away and runs his thumb along his bottom lip, smiling against the heat that radiates from his wound.

“Did that hurt?” He whispers.

“Didn’t hurt,” Dream whispers back. It’s true. It hadn’t. He pushes against George’s mouth and kisses him again, envelopes his tongue with his tongue, feels George’s teeth scrape at his skin. Perfect and impossible and not his. Never his.

Never his, but still here. It’s enough. 

**

Dream doesn’t hate himself the next morning. He expects to, because he wakes up really sore and with George tangled up in his arms and he kind of expects his face to be a grim reminder of everything he can’t fucking have, but instead of agony, he just feels a really pleasant tranqulility. It’s probably how embarrassing how unfamiliar it feels to him.

“So, what,” he murmurs, tracing his fingers against George’s scalp lightly. “You’ve never had a real boyfriend?”

“Hmm?” George asks, still with his eyes shut. He’d gotten up to turn Dream’s coffee machine on a few minutes ago, but then he’d fallen straight back into the warm comforter, the cool side of the pillow and the intertwining of Dream’s legs against his thigh. “Well… yeah. I have.”

“More than one?” Dream asks.

“Yeah,” George says again, turning his glance away from where he’s looking up at Dream and dropping his head back on the pillow. 

“Tell me about them, then,” Dream says, masochistically.

George’s laugh warms the front of his face where it’s tucked into Dream’s neck. “‘S not important.”

“Still wanna hear about it,” Dream says. “C’mon. Tell me.” 

George sighs, working his hand against Dream’s chest so that he’s pushing himself up into a sitting position. “Fine,” he says, his hair sticking up from the top of his head in a cowlick. His voice is grainy like sugar from where he’s been forcing it to work overtime. “All right. You wanna go there?”

“Hell yeah, I wanna go there,” Dream says. He figures they’re not going to be, like, supermodels who live in northern Italy, so no matter what George dishes, he’s going to be able to take it. He sits up, too, leaning his back against the headboard. George takes a deep breath.

“I mean, in secondary, there was Markus,” George says.

Dream frowns. His immediate thought is the broad-shouldered Douchebag from the bar, greasy-haired and tall and with pointy, perfect stubble. “Quarterback slash homecoming king?” 

“Nah,” George says. “He was a rower. Very hot.”

“Rower,” Dream says airily. “Anyone else?”

“For a short time in uni, there was Charlie,” George says, leaning back on his arms. Still images flash in front of Dream’s face again, regrettably, long-haired photographers who are better at poetry than he is and actually went to college like he didn’t. “She was nice. It just didn’t go anywhere.” 

“Oh,” Dream says. George doesn’t seem to notice.

“And then there was my semester in Sienna,” he says, sitting back with a tiny smirk on his face. “Fernando Belardelli.” He leans in a little, dropping his voice. “They called him _The Puma_.” 

“The Puma?” Dream repeats, feeling sick. 

“Yeah,” George says. “‘Cause, you know…” Dream doesn’t say anything again, which makes George laugh and push at his knee with his heel. 

“Is that it?” Dream asks. His eyes aren’t closed, but it feels like opening them for the first time after a horror movie.

“The ones that lasted,” George says.

“Why didn’t they work out?” Dream asks.

George sighs, “What always happens,” he says. He flops on his back across the bed so that the sunlight streams over his face and glints over his teeth. He flings an arm out to rub circles across Dream’s ankle. “Life.”

* * *

**(166)**

“It’s fun,” George says.

“It’s not fun,” Dream says, looking around the tiny park in paranoia. The boy and girl aren’t here today, so they’d spread out with their ice cream on their bench instead of the curb. “It’s scary.” 

“No,” George says. “It’s fun. Just watch.” He makes a show out of closing his eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again. “ _Penis_.”

He licks strawberry ice cream off the side of his cone and looks at Dream expectantly. He looks around the rest of the park in paranoia. The young couple walking their dog and the older man on the phone across the street don’t pay them any attention. They probably never have. George leans forward and pushes his head into Dream’s shoulder.

Dream sighs. “Penis,” he says, a little louder.

“Penis,” George says, raising his voice more than is really fair. Dream shoves him in the side, making him squeal out when he shoves his fingers between his ribs.

“Penis,” Dream says.

“ _Penis_!” George says. 

“Stop!” Dream says, shoving him again. George laughs, raising his ice cream cone over their bodies so it doesn’t spill. “There’s kids around!”

“I see no kids around,” George says. 

There’s no fucking way out of this. “Penis,” Dream says.

“Penis!” George says.

“Oh my God,” Dream says, trying his hardest not to laugh. “You’re so stupid. Is this the type of thing you did with the Puma?” 

“Oh, we rarely left the room,” George says.

“ _Penis_!” Dream yells. The young couple looks over at him. The older man on the phone makes eye contact with him, pushing at the head of a little boy at his leg so that he’s hidden from view. Dream snorts into his ice cream cone. “Sorry,” he calls over to the couple.

“ _Penis_!” George yells back. Dream slams his hand over his mouth. 

“Okay, okay, Jesus, are you done?” He asks, and George pushes away at his wrists, darting his tongue out to lick the inside of Dream’s hand.

“I’m done,” he says, still with Dream’s hand clasped around his mouth so his voice is muffled. “I promise.”

Slowly, Dream peels his hand off of George’s mouth. He looks, for a second, like he _is_ actually going to be normal so they can enjoy their day at the park. He looks at Dream, tilting his head and bringing his knees up so he can rest his chin against them. He licks his ice cream cone.

“Penis!” He shouts. Dream grabs him by the shoulders and tumbles them backwards into the bench. 

* * *

**(321)**

The new secretary’s a young woman, with a head of curly hair and dark skin. Dream can see her walk down the aisles of the office uneasily, and he can already tell she’s heading in his direction, not unlike the way George would head to the copy room armed with files and folders but still send him secret, tiny smiles as if reminding him they existed together during work, too. 

He shouldn’t be thinking about George, but it’s hard when everything looks like him. He looks down at his computer monitor; he hasn’t been typing up cards, because he’s just been typing _I fucking hate you_ over and over into an empty document. If Phil can monitor his screen, he’s probably in deep shit. He looks over at the secretary.

“Um, Clay?” She asks. He blinks at her. “Mr. Watson would like to see you in his office.”

He stands up and runs a hand through his hair to make sure he doesn’t completely look like he was here half an hour late, but he can tell when he stands in Phil’s doorway and knocks against the doorframe that it doesn’t work. Phil eyes him, watches the way he tugs at his messy tie. 

“Clay,” he says. “Have a seat.” He watches Dream fall into the armchair across from his desk warily. Dream looks down at his white sneakers and toes at the dirty heel. “Has something happened to you recently?”

“What do you mean?” Dream asks.

“A death in the family?” Phil asks, crossing his hands and leaning over his desk. “Someone taken ill? Anything like that?”

“No,” Dream says sullenly. Weirdly, he has the urge to go back to his desk—not to avoid the conversation, but keep writing. He’s pretty sure _I fucking hate you_ is the first thing he’s written in months that has any emotion behind it. 

“Look, I don’t mean to pry, but…” Phil says, and pauses. “Does this have anything to do with George leaving?”

“Who?” Dream asks. _I fucking hate you I fucking hate you I fucking hate you_.

“My assistant,” Phil clarifies.

“Your…?” Dream asks, voice trailing off purposefully, but Phil just sighs, crosses his arms when he leans back on his desk.

“Clay,” he says. “Everyone knows.” Dream doesn’t say anything. “Never mind. The reason I’m asking is, because, well—lately—your work performance has been…” he winces, a little, like that's meant to get the message across. “A little off.”

“I’m not following,” Dream says. 

“Okay,” Phil says. He opens a drawer in his desk, rustling around to find a pink card Dream doesn’t recognize. “Here’s something you wrote last week. _Roses are red, violets are blue. Fuck you, asshole._ Now, most shoppers on Valentine’s Day wouldn’t—”

“Am I being fired?” Dream interrupts. He remembers the card now. 

“Oh, no, no, no,” Phil says. “Relax, Clay. You’re one of our most… adequate writers.” 

“Okay, yeah, I’m sorry,” Dream says, pushing his palms into his eyes for a second. He drops his hands in his lap, trying his hardest to make the world’s most uncomfortable eye contact with Phil. “Things have been a little… difficult, lately.” 

“That’s okay,” Phil says encouragingly. “I completely understand that. I’m just saying that you could channel those energies into something like—” he reaches over to a stack of papers on his desk, yanking out a stack of cards he passes over to Dream. Dream picks one up off of the top of the stack and opens it. 

“Funerals and sympathy,” he says. _I’ll always be here with you to help you heal from this loss_ , the card says back. 

“Misery, sadness, loss of faith, no reason to live,” Phil says. “This is perfect for you.” Dream opens his mouth to say something, but Phil scoops all of the cards back towards himself, looking exceedingly proud of the progress he’s made. “Good, okay. Back to work you go.” 

“I—” Dream says, bracing his hands against the chair, but he can’t. He can’t think of anything to say. He can barely make anything up. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Phil says, when he leaves the room. Dream takes the card with him in hopes of it making him feel better. It doesn’t.

* * *

**(342)**

Dream’s walking down Haight with a guy he’s never met, some guy that Sapnap’s been talking up for ages as the only other dude attracted to men he seems to know. He hadn’t really wanted to, but Sapnap insisted, saying it was the best way to get over a breakup. 

Which it wasn’t. It wasn’t a breakup. He doesn’t think it _counted_ as a breakup, even though he’s basically been cycling through his favorite stages of grief with only a few new minor additions. He probably shouldn’t be taking his displeasure out on the guy—Preston—but he doesn’t really know what else to do. He definitely can’t hold a conversation in this state. 

“I normally don’t do blind dates, but Nick spoke very highly of you,” Preston says. Dream just kind of nods. “He said you wrote greeting cards. That’s so interesting. I wanted to write—I actually majored in English in college, but what are you going to do with that degree, right?” He must notice at this point that Dream isn’t answering, but he keeps plowing through like a champ. “I went to Brown. Where did you go?” 

“Preston,” Dream says. They pause, and he looks down; he’s wearing a button-up shirt and his blond hair falls in curly ringlets around his face. He’s perfectly nice-looking. Dream’s just chronically pining. “Listen, um—you’re a really nice person. It’s just—I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. It’s just—there’s this guy.” 

“Oh,” Preston says. He deflates a little, which Dream has to turn away from. He keeps walking down the street, and surprisingly, Preston jogs a little bit from behind him to catch up. “Well—maybe you should—I don’t know. Think about someone else? To cheer you up?” 

Dream looks over from his shoulder at him. “I don’t know. I just can’t get him out of my head. I’m, like, replaying all of these, like, _moments_ , you know? When I should have caught that something was wrong. I’m just all fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Preston says, walking next to him. “I know it’s hard getting over an ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh, no, he was never my boyfriend,” George says. 

Preston looks confused. “He wasn’t?” 

“It’s just, I thought I’d have all of this shit figured out by now,” Dream says, frustrated at himself. They pass a club lit up by purple lighting, which smears the back of his shoes when he continues down the street. “My life. Where I’m going, who I’m going to end up with, the type of person I want to be. And then every few years, I can’t help but fuck it up. But then when I was with George, it just—it felt like he was making me _better_ , you know? I started—” he hesitates, moves to say _I started fucking writing again because of him, I’m that pathetic,_ but he doesn’t think he could say that to a real person’s face. “God, I don’t know. I just—”

“Wait,” Preston says. “So he wasn’t your boyfriend? What were you, then?” 

Dream freezes in his tracks. “That’s a good question,” he says, kind of spitefully. “A _great_ question, actually. And to tell you the truth, I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. We _were_ dating, but he said he didn’t want—labels, or whatever.”

“So you weren’t dating,” Preston clarifies. Dream turns back to continue walking down the street.

“Yeah, thanks, Captain Semantics,” Dream says, without thinking. Preston doesn’t respond. “Sorry. I’m just—sorry It’s just—even so—you can’t fucking ignore what we were doing. The stuff we talked about.” 

“So he didn’t… cheat, or trick you, or anything,” Preston says, sounding only slightly judgemental. “If he told you you weren’t dating, you weren’t dating. I don’t get it.”

“It’s different,” Dream says. “He was different. He wasn’t—you know. Like everyone else. I know it’s cliche, and I know there’s so many more ways I could phrase it, but it’s true. He wasn’t into that, like—you know the scene. Clubbing, glitter, random sex, like—” 

Preston stops. He puts a hand up to keep Dream from continuing down the street. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What?” Dream asks, confused. “I just mean—”

“No, I know what you mean,” he says. His face is red where he’s evidently pissed off but trying to keep his voice level. “And that’s the problem. I know exactly what you mean because I’ve heard it before from dudes who were at least _open_ about the fact that they hated everything I was but still wanted to fuck me. But you can’t even say it out loud.” 

Dream’s skull buzzes. “I really don’t know what the fuck you—”

“I really can’t do this today,” he says, and takes a step back. 

“Hey, come on,” Dream says, throwing his arms up. “I never said _you_ were like that.”

“What if I was?” Preston snaps back. “What if _he_ was?” 

He walks away, after that, leaving Dream to idle in front of an alley full of dumpsters and garbage. He still has his hands stiff at his sides as he watches Preston walk across the street and then out of view, leaving him to fester in his own thoughts.

He kind of feels like screaming out at him, telling him that that’s why this stupid fucking blind date failed, because he’s exactly the type of person George isn’t, because that not only means that _George_ left him, but that some dude that was his cardinal opposite _also_ left him. 

Which makes things quite clear. Dream had figured there were two categories in the world—George, and everyone who isn’t him. It’s statistically improbable that neither group would like him. That has to count for something. That has to mean something. 

Dream looks around—for a bar to sit in, maybe, or a convenience store to buy alcohol from, but he doesn’t see any, so he tries to find a taxi or something instead, but he doesn’t find that either, so he just turns around to start walking back home. He doesn’t live close, but he has to clear his head.

The ridiculous part is that he wants to call George. Tell him about his shitty— _date_ , or whatever defines the situation he found himself in for the last hour. Ask him if it’s true, if he’s the type of person people avoid because he talks like that—which doesn’t make sense. He likes men, but he’s not going to like _every_ man he sees. He’s not supposed to. 

_I don’t want to see the way you treat people you_ don’t _want to sleep with_ , he remembers Sapnap saying. As if he’s some person who hates everyone around him. He puts his hands in his pockets and continues down the street.

* * *

**(402)**

Dream almost misses his departure on the train trying to figure out a way to both carry his suit and call Karl. By the time he’s grabbed hold of the handle to swing himself through the closest entrance, Karl still hasn’t picked up, and Dream’s given him a lot of time. He dials the number again as the robotic voice reminds him he’s headed to Santa Barbara.

“Hey, baby,” Karl says, when he finally picks up. 

“Hey,” Dream says. “Are you here?” 

“Hell no,” Karl says. 

“What do you mean, _hell no_?” Dream asks sharply. 

“I’m not going to that,” Karl says, sounding very easygoing for someone who Dream is already planning to kick in the stomach. “It’s gonna be all old people.” 

“Yeah, but you said you were going,” Dream hisses, lowering his voice as he passes through the packed part of the train. “That’s why I’m going.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I called her last night, told her I was sick,” Karl says. “Like a ninja.”

“ _Dude_ ,” Dream says, practically pleading with him. His eyes search for empty seats among the people already seated—old guys, women making important phone calls, kids climbing over each other and taking up an entire row of seats. “I’m not gonna know anyone at this thing.” 

“Maybe you’ll meet some hot granddaughters or something,” Karl says. 

“I’m hanging up now,” Dream says. He barely hears Karl say _bye, baby_ before he’s shoving his phone back into his pocket, continuing down the aisle in very poorly-contained irritation. He looks at his side disinterestedly, but he doesn’t even have time to choose an empty seat because his eyes catch on _George_.

He’s sitting with his earbuds in, looking out of the window, so he definitely doesn’t see Dream as he continues treading down the walkway. He swings himself into the next empty seat he sees, melting down the front of it as if that will keep George from spotting him.

His heart thumps in his ears so loudly it hurts, his legs shaking with a rapidly familiarizing tension, because he’s back where he was months ago—smiling against George’s mouth, feeling his shoulderblades under his hands, listening to the magnetic lilt of his voice. 

He’s not good with his own memories. He knows that if he looks at George’s face even once his receptors will light up into some microcosmic misunderstanding of his own desires. That’s why he’d had to wipe everything—throw out the hoodies, delete their messages, buy a new comforter. 

The guilt was wracking him, and he couldn’t even remember why he’d _felt_ guilty. And it wasn’t like he could just apologize to George for that. _Sorry for doing whatever the fuck I did that’s currently weighing down on my conscience. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually_ . _Miss you._

He’d been getting somewhere, too. Getting more sleep. Seeing his friends. Talking to them— _actually_ talking to them, about shit that was probably too personal to talk about, in hindsight, but maybe that’s a thing he does now. Talk about the problems he has going on.

_Except for this one_ , his brain reminds him helpfully. He twists around, just a little bit, to see if George is actually sitting there or if he’s just going insane. It could still be both: he’s sitting facing the same direction as Dream, with his hair long enough to curl slightly under his ears and the perpetual bags of exhaustion under his eyes smoothed out. His eyes look the same, obviously. Dream doesn’t think they could ever change. 

And then he flicks them over into Dream’s direction. Dream turns back around to face the back of the seat in front of him so quickly his neck strains, and he flings his headphones away from his neck, rustling through his back with frenzied fingers to find something that will make him seem—normal, really. 

He prays, prays, _prays_ that the noise he’s hearing is the chug of the train and not George’s footsteps, but of course George walks up to him, hitting him with the smell of his cologne so rapidly it’s enough to make Dream woozy. He can never win. 

“Hey, Dream,” he says, twisting his hands on the headrest so close to Dream’s scalp it’s enough to land him into the uncanny valley. George, _here_ , talking to him. Even after the shit he’s done. _Whatever_ shit he’s done, if he’s done anything. 

“Oh, shit,” Dream says a second later, as George smiles and walks forward to grab hold of the seat in front of them to balance himself. “Hey, George! I must have walked right past you.” 

“Guess so,” George says. God damn it. Six months and he still won’t give Dream a _moment_ of relief that he believed his white lie.

“So, um, what are you doing here?” Dream asks. “You going to Millie’s?” 

“Yeah,” George says. “What about you?” 

“I am too,” Dream says. “I forgot you knew her.” 

“Yeah, I mean, we worked together all of that time, so,” George says. “Millie’s great. She’s the sweetest.” There’s a moment of silence where George just looks at him, smiling a little bit. “How are you? I—I wrote to you. But I never heard back.”

“Oh, right,” Dream says. He’d sat down to write a response to that email, he really had, but he came up blank every time. Stupidly, he really just wanted to send George a chapter from the book or something excessively dramatic that would describe how he was doing better than shitty small-talk could, but he never got the courage. “Sorry about that, I mean—you know. The holidays got, like, really crazy, and work, you know—”

“No, I get it,” George says. “I remember. You’re still… working for Phil?” 

Dream feels his skin go hot. “Yeah.” 

“Well, I was gonna go grab a coffee, if you wanna…” George says, a moment later, but his voice trails off because he ducks down and catches sight of the book Dream still has clenched against his lap. “ _Aunt Dan and Lemon._ That’s the thing you were talking about at the library that one time, right?” 

“Oh,” Dream says. He remembers going to the library, but talking to George about some random playwright he liked—he’d have beat the shit out of himself a few months ago if he knew he’d have done that. He doesn’t know how George has the space in his brain to remember. “Yeah. It’s… I’m kind of writing again.” 

“Really?” George says. “You are?” 

“Yeah,” Dream says again, and can’t help smiling a little at George’s giant, shit-eating grin. He wouldn’t have admitted that if he didn’t have a newly-formed deathwish. “Yeah, I’m—Phil put me in touch with some publishers, actually. But nothing’s—nothing’s in stone.”

“That’s really fucking good,” George says. “Like, really good.” Dream just nods, looking back down at his lap. 

He’d go have coffee with George and hear about what the hell he does now on the other side of San Francisco, but truth be told, he doesn’t have the fortitude. He probably would’ve, if he didn’t know how the conversation would end. They’d end up laughing and being sentimental, probably, and then he’d look at George and two things could happen: he could either realize that he wants him just as much, if not even more, or he could realize he doesn’t want _anything_ out of George anymore. He doesn’t know which one is the scarier thought. 

“Well, I don’t wanna bother you,” George says, but then Dream blurts, “No! I’m—um, yeah. Let’s get coffee.” 

“Cool,” George says, a moment later. Dream follows him back down the aisle. 

**

“You still haven’t told me what it’s about,” George says.

“What’s _it_?” Dream asks. It’s nearing sunset as they get closer to Santa Barbara: the sunlight pours against the windows, filthy with their conjoined breaths, and turns every surface yellow-orange with its oppressive glow. 

“Your book, idiot,” George says. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve been trying to get it out of you for months.” 

Dream shrugs helplessly, as if he doesn’t know what it’s about either—which is pretty much true. “It’s…” he says, voice trailing off. _Murder mystery? Crime noir? Self-indulgent angry thriller?_ “Um, fiction, for one, I guess. It’s about this guy whose wife gets murdered and he’s looking for the killer.”

“Sounds interesting,” George says.

Dream can’t hold back a laugh at the look on his face. “You’re thinking it’s dogshit. And, like, listen, you’re probably right, but—I’m kind of done with thinking like that. I’ve been messing around with it for a long time. But the whole thing is going to be that the more he looks for her, the more bored he gets of—bringing the murderer to justice, I guess.” George raises his eyebrows. “I know it sounds kind of fucked up. It’s kind of a character study.”

“It does sound fucked up,” George says. “He gets bored?” 

“Yeah,” Dream says. It feels weird to be talking about his writing with a person who isn’t Sapnap or Karl, who are both legally required to not make fun of him. “Like, the whole thing about movies and books where some guy is looking for his wife’s killer is that that’s his version of closure, right? His coping mechanism or whatever. And it’s just kind of like, I mean—what if that worked? It could never work in real life, but what if it did?”

George taps his fingers against his coffee cup. “I can’t believe you ever stopped writing that.”

“Me neither,” Dream says. The truth is that he hadn’t known how to continue it because he didn’t really agree with the way he’d been thinking. But now—it’s gotten slightly easier to empathize with his brain from two years ago. Maybe closure _does_ work sometimes. “I was—in a weird place.” 

“Place is still pretty weird, I reckon,” George says.

Dream snorts. “Don’t worry. Still is.” He brings his cup to his lips. “Is that why you left?”

“I guess,” George says. “It was a lot of things, but—you know what it’s like there.” 

“Didn’t make you happy?” Dream asks. George shakes his head. He doesn’t know why he asked. It couldn’t make anyone happy. Hell is a fucking cubicle. “I’m glad you left, then.” 

George looks at him again, tilting his head in thought. It should feel like closure, but it doesn’t. Dream doesn’t know how worrying that should be for him. 

* * *

**(403)**

Dream only gets a night to sleep and lay out his suit before he has to be at the procession the next day, idling around uncomfortably as he waits to be pointed in the right direction to the wedding venue. Everyone around him is an old woman wearing a floral-patterned hat. 

He’s standing on the hill overlooking the wedding archway in the distance when he catches George heading out from the hotel, squinting against the sun. Dream walks closer to drink in the sight of him. He’s wearing a dark suit that only looks blue when the sun hits him right. He doesn’t know how he's supposed to be paying attention to the bride later.

“Hey,” George says, when he finally walks into earshot. He hides his eyes from the sun with a palm. “You look nice.”

“Thanks,” Dream says, only slightly starstruck. He blames the way he’s talking on the heat; he doesn’t really have time to think about how hot he is because he’s usually sweltering while wearing a suit and in California. “Shall we?” 

George smiles at him and they walk down the hill with the rest of the partygoers. The venue’s pretty, covered in white flowers peeking out of green bodies. The sunlight that manages to break against the gaps in their wicker chairs paints Dream’s skin the color of milk tea. George sits down next to him as people gather around in their seats. 

He leans forward, his breath tickling Dream’s ear. “Penis.” 

Against his better judgement, Dream snorts, shoving against George’s shoulder. “ _No_ ,” he says firmly, but George just giggles at him, leaning into his arm again and setting electricity off the entire length of his arm. Though that could also be the sunlight baking his skin inside his suit sleeve. Dream’s going to die of heatstroke.

People around them hush, and the music starts up in the background, accompanying Millie’s stroll down the aisle. Looking at her feels pleasant—she’s smiling so warmly when she reaches the priest that Dream actually likes his job for a second. He supposes good things have come out of it every once in a while. 

“Dearly beloved,” the priest begins, planted firmly in front of the procession like the flowers that adorn the altar. “We are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”

The vows begin, gentle but still rolling over like a faint breeze. “Millie,” the priest says, and she looks over at him. “Do you take this man to be your husband to live together in holy matrimony, to love him, to honor him, to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

Dream feels a rustling at his leg. When he looks down, George’s fingers are hovering dangerously close over his knee, fingers spread like he’s not exactly sure whether he should touch him at all. 

“I do,” Millie says.

George’s hand snatches away.

**

“You snore,” Dream says. 

George scoffs at him. The night’s turned cooler but the sky’s just as bright, the ornate spreads of the afterparty lit up by candlelight around them. He and George are both sitting with their legs practically pushed up against the kiddie table, the kids around them knocking over their short wine glasses and pushing each other around the venue. Millie had asked them with a last-second, worried consideration, whether they’d prefer a normal table, but Dream doesn’t think he’d have enjoyed himself as much at one. “No, I don’t.”

“You do,” Dream says persistently. 

“I don’t!” George says. “If I do, you do too.”

“I mean, I know _I_ do,” Dream says. 

“And your breath smells like shit in the morning,” George adds, making Dream giggle again. 

“That one time—” he tries, but George just shakes his head furiously. 

“Every time,” he corrects, still grinning ear-to-ear. “That one time especially, but every time. And when you wake up, your hair—” he raises two fingers against his head as if showing Dream in what direction it goes up in, “It sticks up like that. It’s ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Dream says. “Your favorite Beatle is Ringo.” 

“Damn right,” George says. 

“Ringo is—” Dream says, but before he can continue, he feels the kid that had been running around the table tap him on the shoulder. 

“Goose!” He cries out, and Dream jumps up out of his seat, almost toppling over in how quickly he gets on his feet to run along the table. He doesn’t catch him, of course, and just the half-second of exertion has his heart racing.

“Damn it, all right,” he says. George turns his head over his shoulder, making eye contact to give him a toothy grin as if reminding him not to half-ass what he does next. “Duck… duck… duck…” 

He’s on his third glass of wine by the time Millie makes her way back onto the dance-floor, holding her bouquet against her chest tightly. The band’s singing a softer, melancholic rendition of Etta James’s _At Last_ when she shuts her eyes and flings the bouquet behind her at her bridesmaids. 

Some of them reach out to catch it, but it doesn’t land in any of their arms—in fact, it heads straight towards George’s, even as he stands awkwardly to the side with his hands in his pockets. He stumbles, flushing a furious color as he keeps the flowers from spilling out, and there’s a silence as people decide how to react. And then they start laughing. Congratulating him. 

It’s kind of funny more than anything. Dream doesn’t know what George thinks _he’ll_ be thinking when he finally comes back around to the lit-up back of the umbrellaed venue, holding two shot glasses instead of the bouquet and looking slightly hesitant, as if Dream would ever say no to a shot. 

“You gonna start planning the wedding?” Dream asks him immediately. George’s face relaxes, and he just shakes his head a little, handing Dream one of the glasses.

“God, no,” he says. “Okay. Let’s go. One, two, three—”

Dream raises the glass to his mouth and flings it down his throat, watching George maintain eye contact as he swallows his own shot, gritting his teeth as it scalds through his entire body. Behind them, all of their cute-in-an-old-person-way coworkers are clutched against each other, dancing to Etta James, definitely not teetering over the edge of uncomfortably tipsy. Dream looks over at George.

“Wanna dance?” He asks. 

“Sure,” George says. They make their way to the dance floor. Dream’s hands fit easily around his waist, and then George wraps his arms around the back of Dream’s neck, swaying against the bodies keeping them firmly in place. 

His mouth is the closest to Dream it’s been in months. It’d be hard not to feel overwhelmed, but—Dream doesn’t feel overwhelmed. He feels soft, if anything. Gooey to the touch. It could always be the alcohol, but he doesn’t think it is. It’s nice to have him here again. 

“Hey,” George says. “Um, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” Dream asks. 

“I’m having a party this Friday,” George says. “You should come. My building has a really nice rooftop. It’s overlooking the city, so. I was just gonna have some people over.” He must notice how Dream doesn’t say anything. “So… yeah. You can come if you want to.” 

Dream clenches his fingers against the fabric of George’s suit. “I…” He doesn’t really know how to respond. It doesn’t feel right, to go back on all of the progress he’s made so far just because he thinks there might be a _slim_ chance of anything happening again, but—he doesn’t know what he’d do with himself if he didn’t go. If he had to live with the possibility of not trying again. “Okay. Yeah.” 

“Cool,” George says, face going softer. He ducks his head a little to watch their feet sway together. 

Something pushes at Dream’s chest. “Um… I meant to tell you before,” he starts, not really knowing when _before_ was. “But I didn’t realize that it was something I should’ve said. But, like—I’m...”

The group around them intersperses into gentle clapping, and Dream breaks away, tucking his hands back into his pockets. George stands in front of him, eyebrows furrowed, not turning back to the band.

“You’re what?” He asks.

“It’s nothing,” Dream says. “It’s fine.”

**

George falls asleep on his shoulder on the train ride back.

(And Dream knows, somewhere deep inside him, that he has to apologize for something. He just doesn’t know what.) 

* * *

**(408)**

Dream knows what he expects to happen. He expects George to open the door and watch him for a minute, not invite him inside, move closer and press his mouth against his cheek, whisper something stupid like _I’m glad you made it_ or _I’m so happy to see you_ or _you actually came_. Something sappy. Something unrealistic.

He expects George to look at the book tied with a bow he has in his hand, realize that it’s the stupid fucking Wallace Shawn play, and maybe say something about it—something like _you know I’m not going to read this, but thank you anyway_ —and then maybe hug him, press his heartbeat to Dream’s shoulder. 

Pull him down with everything he has so they’re at the same height. Bring him somewhere. Parade him to the rest of the partygoers, all well-dressed and young and people Dream has never met before, who are easy to make smalltalk with mostly because they’re not George. 

He expects George to spend the evening whispering more things-he’s-never-told-anyone against his jaw—ignoring his other guests in favor of Dream, selfishly, and brushing his fingers against his suit jacket and bringing him back into the room Dream has memorized down to the panelling and then ending the night saying more pretty things, things like, _I lied. I wanted you the entire time. And I think this could be something beautiful, you and me, because I think there’s something special here. I think you’ve made me into someone I like being_.

None of that happens. George flings open the door.

“Dream!” He says. He does look excited, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to drop dead if Dream doesn’t step inside. “Hey, come in. Thanks for making it.” He looks down at his hand, where Dream’s holding the play. “Wait. Is that the—”

“Yeah,” Dream says stupidly, and raises it up. “I got it. For you.”

“Woah,” George says, plucking at the bow at the cover. He looks up again. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and he smells like aftershave, skin clean and stubbly. “Thanks. I’ll actually be able to talk about it with you once I read it. I promise.” 

He hadn’t been lying. The rooftop gives Dream a first-person view of how San Francisco darkens during the evening, orange lights in the street stuttering into faint white, dotting the blackness of the streets with their diminished remains. He talks, a little, and he drinks and he eats finger-foods and he makes jokes about his shitty job and the shitty place where he lives to people he doesn’t know, but he realizes, with a start, that this isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

“So George tells me you write greeting cards,” a girl with blonde hair is saying. Behind her, George is smiling at him against his glass of vodka, but Dream can’t find it within him to smile back. “That’s so interesting. How’d you get into it?” 

“He’s a really good writer,” George says. “He could get published, if he really wanted to.”

Dream looks over at him, tamping down his first instinct. “Trying to right now, actually.”

“What?” George asks. “You are?” 

“So how’d you go from books to greeting cards?” The girl asks, hovering her wine glass over the glass coffee table in front of her. Dream smiles, a little.

“Just figured,” he says, “Why make something disposable, like a novel, when you could make something that lasts forever, like a greeting card?”

George laughs first, and stops laughing last. Dream finds him again when it’s dark. It’s easier to talk to him when it’s dark. 

“Hey,” he says, and George turns around, still cradling a cup that he seems to have been refilling the entire night.

“Hi,” George says warmly, but then blinks at him slowly. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Oh,” Dream says, and grits his jaw. “Yeah. I just—I wanted to apologize.”

“What?” George asks. “For what?”

“For—” Dream says, and his mouth freezes up. Of course. He’d known he’d had to do this, but he _still_ hadn’t planned out what he had to say. “I know I’m—I don’t know. I just know it’s not—that I’ve done some shit to you. So I just wanted to apologize. I guess.”

George stares at him. “You didn’t do anything.”

Dream frowns. “I—”

“No,” George says, interrupting him. “You’ve—I think I know what you’re talking about, but that was a disagreement, Dream. They’re normal for people who… are normal.” 

“You’re talking about that time at the bar, right?” Dream asks. George nods. “Because I didn’t realize—I didn’t realize how weird it was, what I said. That’s all. That’s all I wanted to say.” 

George looks at him. “It’s okay. Really.” 

And then he’s done. Theoretically, this would be where it all ends. Dream shouldn’t be here, because it fucking sucks being alone when he doesn’t have to be. And he doesn’t have to be alone. He could go to The Well to see Karl and Sapnap. He could go home to see Patches. He could—go talk to George again, maybe, because he’s hovering near the entrance, smiling at every guest who passes through. Dream doesn’t think they’ve run out of conversation topics yet, but he can’t force himself over there. 

_You don’t have to be here_ , Dream’s brain whispers, and it’s an immediate rush of adrenaline, the realization that if things make him miserable, he doesn’t have to fucking do them.

He leaves a little bit after twelve. If George notices, he doesn’t say anything. 

* * *

**(442)**

“This one says _Go for it_ ,” one of the Inspiration and Hope writers, Rhoda, says, at the head of the meeting table on a bright-and-fucking-early Thursday morning. “And this one says, _You can do it_. We have a whole line of inspirational photographic cards featuring Pickles, my cat.” She beams out at them. “I think people will really enjoy them.” 

“Thank you, Rhoda,” Phil says boredly, to a quiet spattering of hand-clapping. Dream leans his hand onto his chin, trying to keep his eyes open. “Inspirational stuff. Okay, who’s next?” Phil looks around, but Dream just keeps staring straight ahead, slumping down in his seat. “We haven’t heard from Sympathy in a while. Clay?”

“Yeah?” Dream says, a moment later. He hasn’t slept. Rather, he slept, but it was on top of his pen and a half-full notebook that he’d been scratching into because he couldn’t fall asleep. It’s always a bitch to transport onto his typed-up copy, but it gets his mind going. 

“The Winter Collection?” Phil says. “Do you have anything to contribute?” 

“Uh,” Dream says. “No.” Karl gives him a look across the table, like, _you’re going to get fired, idiot_ , but somehow—against all odds—Dream can’t be bothered to give a fuck. “I really don’t.” 

“Okay,” Phil says, a moment later. “We’ll come back to you. Karl?”

“Actually,” Dream says, sitting up so that his chair squeaks. “You know what—can I say something? About the cat?”

“...Okay,” Phil says. Dream’s eyes dart to Rhoda, who’s definitely too old and too nice to be on the receiving end of his complaint, but that’s part of the problem. She’s old and nice and this is a place for people who are old and nice. Not Dream, who’s young and an asshole. 

“Yeah, uh, this is—and Rhoda, no disrespect here,” Dream says, because he’s not _that_ much of an asshole, “But, um, this is total shit.”

“ _Dream_ ,” Karl says. 

“ _Go for it_ ?” Dream says. “ _You can do it_ ? That’s not inspirational. That’s suicidal. If Pickles goes for it, he’s a dead cat.” It’s true: Pickles is placed precariously close to the tabletop that Rhoda has him posed against. “These are lies. We’re liars. I mean, why do people buy these cards? It’s not ‘cause they want to say how they feel—they buy them because they can’t say how they feel. Or they’re afraid to.” He’s getting a lot louder now, pushing himself away from the table, straightening the crick in his neck. Both Karl and Phil are staring at him with wide eyes. “You know what? I say we level with America. Make them say what they actually want to say. I mean, look at this—” he snatches one of the many cards in the middle of the table. “Look at this. _Congratulations on your new baby_ . Here’s something more correct— _congratulations on your new baby. That’s it for hanging out. Nice knowing you_.”

“Sit down,” Phil hisses at him, between gritted teeth. Dream doesn’t listen.

“Or, I mean—oh, I know what _this_ is going to be,” Dream says, picking up another card in front of him. Pink, with sparkly hearts. It makes him sick. “ _Happy Valentines Day, sweetheart. I love you_ .” He can’t help laughing out loud. “Love, I mean—what the fuck _is_ this? If someone gave me this card, Mr. Watson, I’d eat it.”

“Clay,” Phil says sternly, but Dream doesn’t let him continue. “Pop songs, movies, these fucking _cards_ —I mean, they’re responsible. We’re responsible. _I’m_ responsible.” _Like love is this thing that’s supposed to fix you. Like love is something you can only get once._ “I think we do a bad thing here. I think—God. I quit.” 

Karl chokes. Rhoda’s mouth falls open.

“There’s enough bullshit in the world without my help,” Dream mutters, in the silence. 

He walks around the meeting table and then heads towards the stairs. He hears Karl trying to start a slow clap, but it doesn’t really catch on. 

* * *

**(500)**

Dream’s always had this weird thing for fixating on things he can’t finish. He’s done it since he was a kid. The thing is, the book’s easy now—it’s easy because he has free time, and he’s done other things, too, things that make it easier to think clearly without getting fogged up by all of the bullshit that had been surrounding him before. And there had been a lot. A really healthy veil of bullshit.

He answered George’s email. He didn’t really need to, but he figured it was as good of a way to apologize as any. He was kind of vague with it—which was stupid, in hindsight. _I’m sorry for the stuff I did_ is the biggest cop-out in the world. 

He’s just finished finalizing his meeting for the only publishing agency that picked up the phone when someone knocks on his door. He checks the time—eleven, which means it could only really be Sapnap. He’s just as open to the possibility of it being Karl so he can yell at Dream some more for how he has to live on three hundred dollars for the next week unless they pick up his fucking book.

But of course, when he opens it, it’s George. Patches scurries away from the open door and into Dream’s bedroom. He’s pretty sure his jaw is hanging open.

“You’re an idiot,” George says. 

“Huh?” Dream says. George pushes himself inside.

“I said, you’re an idiot,” George says. “You’re really, really fucking stupid. Like, really stupid. Sometimes it genuinely astounds me, how you can be so utterly—self-conscious, but then, at the same time, so completely unaware of what you’re saying. It’s fascinating.”

“...Did you just come to my house to bully me?” Dream asks, a moment later. He’s still kind of lost because George had barged in wearing his Fleetwood Mac shirt. He’s been looking for that shirt for months. 

“That one fucking time, outside of Cinammon Paradise,” George continues, eyes so frantic it’s taking Dream a second to work out everything he’s talking about in his head. “I thought you were being such a prick to that random couple. But then I’d remember—I was being a prick too. And sometimes you weren’t a prick. Sometimes you’d say these things and I’d think, like, _holy shit, this guy is a writer. It makes sense, now_ . And at The Well, when you said that thing about—about how artists couldn’t be lying about what they wrote about, I remember thinking, _I hope they are. It’s so scary if they aren’t_.” He freezes, looking at Dream with his harrowed eyes. “Can I tell you something?”

“What?” Dream asks.

“I like being around you,” George says. “I like kissing you. And I’m sorry if that freaks you out and if you need more from me, but that’s all I can give you, so if you want it, that’s all you’re going to get.” 

“You don’t…” Dream says, only slightly taken aback. He’s not entirely convinced George is real. He’s been writing about murderers for the past few days, so it’s easy to write him off as a fever dream. “If this is you, like, changing your fucking mind about me, you could’ve done that six months ago when I actually still wanted you.”

George flinches as if slapped. “Shit,” he breathes, his face relaxing away from its hectic sorrow. “I’m sorry. Shit.” He turns on his heel, already heading towards the open door in record time with his eyes narrowed tight. “I shouldn’t have—assumed you still felt the same. I’m sorry—I should probably—”

“George,” Dream says, and steps in front of the door to block his way. “I’m fucking with you. I do still want you.”

“Huh?” George says, looking up. He slams Dream in the chest with a fist. “Dude! You shouldn’t—”

“Sorry,” Dream giggles, and catches his fist in his hand. And then he realizes he’s holding George’s fist in his hand, cold from the night, knuckles scraping against the front of his thumb. “It’s just—it’s not going to be—I don’t know what you expect out of me, but it’s not going to be how you like it.”

“What do you mean, _how I like it_?” George repeats.

“Like—I have shit I have to do, now,” Dream says. “I’m writing a book. Or something.”

George laughs. Loud, bright. And then he leans up and kisses Dream, so quickly it passes in a flutter of Dream’s heartbeat. The taste of his mouth is familiar and Dream tastes the ghost of strawberry ice cream. 

George pulls away, hands tight against his chest as if unsure in himself. “Should I have done that?” He whispers.

Dream smiles, again, like a fucking idiot, because he knows how it must look that he found himself all the way back here. But he’s looking down at George and he doesn’t look unattainable. He looks like he could fit in the palm of Dream’s hand. “Yeah.”

“Dream,” George says. “God—can you—”

“What?” Dream asks. He knows he’s not fully out of the rut. He forced himself into it, and it’s hard to get out when it’s all he’s known, for so long. Especially because he’s the fucking idiot who thought someone like George could pull him out—he could never do that. He’s not some fucking angel. Nobody is. 

“Can you read me some of your book?” George asks.

That, Dream can do. So he does.

**Author's Note:**

> very diff ending from the movie but i thought it would be fun to do like. character development but still with a cute ending. so i hope u liked it :-)


End file.
